1960   [IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEAL]

Present : Basnayake, C.J. (President), Sansoni, J., and.
H. N. G. Fernando, J.

REGINA v. J. ANANDAGODA
 
APPEAL 114 OF 1960, WITH APPLICATION 136
 
S. C. 14-M. C. Anuradhapura, 17176 

    Evidence-Admissions-confession-Statement made by an accused to a police officer­ Admissibility-" Fact in issue "-" Relevant fact "-Evidence Ordinance, 88.5, 17 (1) and (2), 25.
 
The exclusion of evidence on the general ground enunciated in The King v. Kalubanda (15 N. L. R. 422) and later applied in Weerakone v. Ranhamy (27 N. L. R. 267)-namely, that a statement made by an accused person to a police officer which clearly or by implication shows that a defence taken may be false, or which even permits an inference to be drawn, prejudicial to the accused, is a confession within the meaning of section 17 (2) of the Evidence Ordinance­ should no longer be regarded as valid. A statement made to a police officer by a person accused of an offence would be inadmissible in evidence only if it is either an admission of the commission of the offence by the accused or else suggests the inference that the accused committed the offence.
 
In a prosecution for murder­

Held, that admissions made by the accused person to a police officer of facts  which could establish, on the part of the accused, motive, or opportunity, or knowledge of the death of the deceased, were admissible in evidence and did not constitute a confession within the meaning of sections 17 (2) and 25 of the Evidence Ordinance.
 
APPEAL, against a convection in a trial before the Supreme Court.
 
The appellant was convicted of having murdered one Adeline Vitharane on 14th March 1959 at a place called Timbiriwewa near the 27th mile-post on the road between Puttalam and Anuradhapura. In addition to other testimony, the prosecution led in evidence certain admissions which were alleged to have been made by the appellant the Police Officers. Inspector Goonetilleke testified that the appellant stated to him that he was intend­ing to marry some young woman, who was not Adeline Vitharane. Ins­pector Dharmaratna testified to the following admissions made to him by the appellant :-(a) That Adeline Vitharane had been his mistress for two or three years and had a child by him; that Adeline was insisting that he marry her but that he had been putting it off; that Adeline had become an unbearable nuisance to him ; and that Adeline had come to see him at Kalutara on2rid March 1959, and that he had kept her in a. house at Kalawellawa. (b) That on 14th March be had started in his car with Adeline and the 2nd accused for Anuradhapura via Puttalam, and that they had reached a hotel at Puttalam between 8 and 9 p.m. (c) That he had taken a motor car from Avis Motors on 15th March and

had gone to Anuradhapura via Puttalam, and that at about 3 p.m. on that day, he had passed the body of Adeline, and had slowed down and noticed people and Police Officers there.
 
The admissions had the effect of inducing the jury to believe (a) that the appellant had a strong motive for desiring the death of Adeline Vitharane, (b) that the appellant was in her company when she was last seen alive by witnesses in the case, and had an opportunity to be in her company at the time when her death was caused, (c) that he had planned to use a hired car, and not his own car, for the trip with Adeline on the day of her death, and (d) that his subsequent conduct tended to show that he may have had knowledge that her body lay at the place where it .was ultimately discovered.

It was contended for the appellant that, the admissions, taken together, constituted a confession and that, having been made to Police Officers, they were led in evidence in contravention of section 25 of the Evidence ordinance.
 
T. W. Rajaratnam, with R. L. R. Kulawansa and Kulan Ratnesar (retained) and J. C. Thurairatnam (assigned), for the accused