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ANTHONY GEORGE BOULOS
V.
THE QUEEN
THE WEST AFRICAN COURT OF APPEAL, HOLDEN AT LAGOS, NIGERIA
28TH DAY OF MAY, 1954
2PLR/1954/48 (WACA)
OTHER CITATION(S)
2PLR/1954/48 (WACA)
(1954) XIV WACA PP. 543-545
LEX (1954) – XIV WACA 543-545
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BEFORE THEIR LORDSHIPS:
FOSTER-SUTTON, P.
DE COMARMOND, AG. C.J., NIGERIA
COUSSEY, J.A.
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BETWEEN:
ANTHONY GEORGE BOULOS – Appellant
AND
THE QUEEN – Respondent
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ORIGINATING COURT(S)
Appeal by a convicted person: No. 11/1954.
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REPRESENTATION
F. R. A. Williams — for the Appellant
Madarikan, Crown Counsel — for the Crown
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ISSUE(S) FROM THE CAUSE(S) OF ACTION
CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE:- Criminal Code, section 430(1) – Possession – Goods suspected to be raw gold – Explanation raising suspicion goods stolen or unlawfully obtained
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CASE SUMMARY
The appellant was found carrying a parcel of ash-trays which the police suspected to be of raw gold. Asked about them, he said he had bought them for £500 but would not say from whom. Later, after charge and caution, he said that they had been given him by a white man whose identity and address he did not know. He was prosecuted under section 430(1) of the Criminal Code for having in his possession a number of alloyed gold ash-trays reasonably suspected of having been unlawfully obtained. They had a high gold content and were worth about £1,800. He did not give evidence at his trial.
In the appeal from conviction it was argued for him that since the suspicion was that the parcel contained raw gold, which was not the case, and at the time the appellant was accosted by the police that was the only suspicion, he ought to have been acquitted.
DECISION(S) OF THE WEST AFRICAN COURT OF APPEAL
Held (dismissing the Appeal) that:
1. The initial suspicion of the police turned out to be wrong, but the appellant’s explanations created a reasonable suspicion in the minds of the police that the ash-trays had been unlawfully obtained;
2. The Appellant made no attempt to satisfy the Court that he had come by them lawfully;
3. Consequently the inference that the Appellant was guilty of an offence under section 430(1) of the Criminal Code was justified.
Case cited:-
James Ayanshina v. Commissioner of Police, W.A.C.A. 3571 (Nigeria), October-November, 1951, p. 1 of cyclostyled judgments. (Editor’s Note: Section 430 (1) is doubtless ultimately derived from section 24 of the Metropolitan Courts Act, 1839: see thereon Lord Goddard’s observations in Flatman v. Light and Others (1946), K.B. 414; 2 All E.R., at p. 369.)
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MAIN JUDGMENT
The following Judgment was delivered:
FOSTER-SUTTON, P.
The appellant was tried before Abbott, J., sitting in the Supreme Court, Lagos Judicial Division, on an information containing four counts.
He was found not guilty on three of the counts, but was convicted on the second count which charged him with having in his possession eighteen alloyed gold ash-trays reasonably suspected of having been unlawfully obtained, an offence under section 430(1) of the Criminal Code (Cap. 42), and was sentenced to a fine of £100, or to six months’ imprisonment with hard labour.
The appellant then filed an application for leave to appeal to this Court against his conviction. Leave was granted on one ground only which, as amended by leave, reads as follows:-
“The learned trial Judge erred in law and on the facts in convicting the appellant on count 2 of the information when there is no evidence that the appellant was found in possession of the ash-trays in circumstances that warrant reasonable suspicion that they have been unlawfully obtained.”
Mr. F. R A. Williams appeared for the appellant and Mr. Madarikan for the Crown.
Section 430(1) of the Criminal Code provides that:-
“Every person who is charged before any Court with having in his possession or under his control in any manner or in any place, or for that he at any time within the three months immediately preceding the making of the complaint did have in his possession or under his control in any manner or in any place, anything which is reasonably suspected of having been stolen or unlawfully obtained and who does not give an .account, to the satisfaction of the Court, as to how he came by the same, is guilty of an offence and is liable, on conviction, to a fine of one hundred pounds or to imprisonment for six months.”
The case for the prosecution was that on the 22nd September, 1953, police officers, on information received, went to 64 Martins Street, Lagos. At about 10 a.m. on that day the appellant arrived at that address in a motor car. He got out and was seen to be carrying a parcel wrapped in a towel. The police officers accosted him, disclosed their identity, and asked him what was in the parcel, to which he replied “they are ash-trays”. The parcel was opened and found to contain eighteen ash-trays, which at the trial were proved to weigh altogether 147.4 troy ounces and to have a gold content of 137.8 troy ounces, and an approximate value of £1,800. The police officers suspected that they were made of raw gold and Assistant Superintendent of Police, Lawani, asked the appellant from whom he bought them and how much he paid, to which questions the appellant replied that he had paid £500 for them, but he declined to disclose the identity of the person who sold them.
Later on the same day, after charge and caution, the appellant made a voluntary statement to the police, exhibit “F”, during the course of which he said:
“The eighteen gold ash-trays found in my possession today were given to me by a certain unknown man on 22nd September, 1953, at about 10.30 a.m. and he is a white man. He spoke to me in English. He asked me to weigh them for him. I do not know where the white man stays. I saw him today only in my life.”
At the trial the appellant did not give evidence, contenting himself with calling Mr. William Daniel Kalio, Assistant District Officer, who testified to having issued in the name of the appellant’s father, a permit, exhibit “J”, which entitled the father to purchase forty ounces of raw gold during the month of September. The father also gave evidence to the effect that the appellant worked for him and that he had authorised the appellant to purchase gold on his behalf, but that he knew nothing about the eighteen gold ash-trays.
The “unknown white man” did not appear to give evidence or to claim the eighteen gold ash-trays.
Mr. Williams submitted, that in order to convict in the present case the following elements must be present, firstly, that the appellant was found in possession, secondly, that the articles were reasonably suspected of having been unlawfully obtained, and thirdly, that he failed to give a satisfactory explanation, and he argued that since the suspicion was that the parcel contained raw gold which was proved not to be the case, and at the time the appellant was accosted by the police that was the only suspicion, he ought to have been acquitted.
The sub-section under which the appellant was charged is wide in its scope, and I agree with the view expressed by this Court in the case of James Ayanshina v. Commissioner of Police (1), “that it can only, if it is not to impose hardship on innocent persons, be applied with the greatest caution and in the circumstances in which we feel the Legislature intended that it should be operated”, but I do not think that the learned trial Judge did violence to that principle by convicting in this case.
It is true that the suspicion of the police that the appellant was in possession of raw gold turned out to be wrong, but the appellant was found in possession of a large quantity of gold and we should have been surprised if his explanations as to how he came by it had not raised a suspicion that it had been unlawfully obtained. Moreover, it was open to the appellant to satisfy the Court that he had come by it lawfully, but this he made no attempt to do.
There can be no doubt that there was evidence from which the learned trial Judge could infer that the eighteen gold ash-trays might reasonably be suspected of having been unlawfully obtained. Reasonable suspicion means that there must be something more than imagination or conjecture. It must be suspicion of a reasonable man, warranted by facts from which inferences can be drawn, and, as already indicated, we are in no doubt that facts were present in this case which entitled the learned trial Judge to draw the inference he did.
In these circumstances this appeal must be dismissed.
Appeal dismissed.
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