Obiyas Appuhamy V. The Queen

[COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEAL]

1952 Present  :   Nagalingam A.C.J. (President), Gunasekara J. and Pulle J.

OBIYAS APPUHAMY, Appellant, and THE QUEEN, Respondent

Appeal 11 with Application 14 of 1952

S. C. 17-M. C. Kanadulla, 7,229

Confession to police officer-Inadmissibility-Not restricted to actual terms of the statement-Evidence Ordinance (Cap. 11), ss. 8 and 25 (1).

Evidence was led that the accused volunteered a statement to a police officer, who, thereupon, immediately handcuffed the accused and took him to the scene of the offence.

Held, that such evidence was inadmissible. It is not solely evidence of the actual terms of a confession that can be obnoxious to section 25 (1) of the Evidence Ordinance, but also any evidence which if accepted would lead to the inference that the accused made a confession to a police officer would be inadmissible.

APPEAL, with application for leave to appeal, against a conviction in a trial before the Supreme Court.

J. G. Jayatilleke, for the accused appellant.

R. A. Kannangara, Crown Counsel, for the Crown.

Cur. adv. vult.

March 17, 1952. GUNASEKARA J.-

This appeal raises a question as to the admissibility of certain evidence regarding a statement made by the accused appellant to a police officer and the propriety of a direction given to the Jury about that statement.

The appellant was convicted on a charge of murder which was based on circumstantial evidence and evidence of admissions alleged to have been made by him to two persons, Aron and Velun, to the effect that he had shot the deceased. According to the case for the Crown, the deceased, a man named William, had been shot dead at about 4 p.m. on the 8th May, 1951, in the neighbourhood of a watch hut on a coconut estate, and on the evening of the same day a sub-inspector of police found a spent cartridge in a vegetable garden behind the watch hut. It was alleged that the cartridge was found in consequence of a statement which was made to the sub-inspector by the appellant who was then in his custody at that place, and that the statement was that the appellant " threw it into the vegetable garden which is behind the watch hut " and which he pointed out to the sub-inspector.

Before the sub-inspector gave this evidence the Crown Counsel had elicited from him that the appellant came to the police station at about 6p.m. and made a statement, which he recorded and the appellant signed, and that he then took the appellant to the scene of the shooting in view of the statement that he had made. Having referred to certain investigations that he made there he added that he " recorded another statement from the accused the same day ". After some further questions about his investigation he was asked by Crown Counsel-

" In connection with this case did you take anybody into custody ?" and he replied

" I took the accused into custody. "

The counsel for the defence then objected to the question.

Thereupon, according to the transcript of the shorthand note of the proceedings, the witness was further examined as follows :-

" (Court : When did you take accused into custody ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . At the police station.)

Examination continued.

Q. At what time ? . . . . . . . After he made his statement to me at 6 p.m. and thereafter I brought accused to the estate.

(Court: How did you bring him ? . . . . . . . . 'By car.)

Q. Was he handcuffed ? . . . . . . . I cannot say.

Q. Look at your notebook . . . . . . . I handcuffed accused immediately accused made a statement.

Q. Immediately he made a statement to you you arrested him? . . . . . . . Yes) ".

The effect of the sub-inspector's evidence as to what happened at the police station at 6 p.m. is that the appellant turned up there and volunteered a statement to him and he immediately handcuffed him and took him to the scene of the shooting. This evidence clearly suggests that the statement volunteered b

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