R v Spencer

• Jurisdiction: Jamaica
• Judge: Lewis, J.
• Judgment Date: 10 December 1963
• Neutral Citation: JM 1963 CA 13
• Docket Number: Criminal Appeal No.184 of 1963
• Court: Court of Appeal (Jamaica)
• Date: 10 December 1963

Court of Appeal

Lewis, P.; Duffus, J.; Henriques, J.

Criminal Appeal No.184 of 1963

R.

and

Spencer

Appearances

Mr.Dennis McFarlane for the appellant

Mr.J.Kerr for the Crown.

Practice and procedure - Witness with interest to serve — How his evidence should be treated

Lewis, J.

1 This is really a very simple case in which the magistrate believed the story told on behalf of the prosecution and rejected the appellant's story, and applied, as he says at the end of his notes, the principle that where a witness may have an interest to serve, the court ought to look with great caution upon his evidence and should look for corroboration of it.

2 The appellant was convicted for larceny of a motorcar wiper motor form a Minx car at Sproston's Used Car compound at Halfway Tree. The witness for the prosecution, Bailey, who works in the compound as a painter said that on the 23 ^rd of July, 1963, about mid-day he saw the appellant also a workman in the same compound, removing this motor from the car and that he challenged him. The appellant told him he was to keep his mouth quiet, which he did. The motor next turned up in the hands of a soldier called Allen whom Bailey said he had seen with the appellant in the compound at the material time. This Allen also gave evidence for the prosecution and he said that he had asked the appellant whether he knew where he could get a motor; that he had gone with him to several motor cars but he did not see him open any and that the appellant had told him to meet him by Halfway Tree where he would give him a motor which he would procure for him.Allen's story was that he did not know where the motor came from and impliedly that he had no reasons to suspect that it was a stolen motor.

3 The appellant's story in court was that Bailey had given him this motor to deliver to Allen who was waiting in a car in the compound. When he was questioned about the motor at Halfway Tree by the Constable, Keith Henry, he said that he had seen Bailey removing the motor from the car but in his evidence in court he said that he did not know where the motor came from.

4 It was submitted by learned counsel for the appellant that there was reasonable doubt the benefit of which the Resident magistrate should have given to the appellant; and also that Bailey was an accomplice and Allen an accomplice and one accomplice could not corroborate the other so that, in the circumstances of the case, the...