See: also R. v. Basker Ville (1916) 2 KB 658 at
667.
It is thus clear that for that evidence to amount to corroboration, it must
be extraneous to the witness who is to be corroborated. See: R v. White
head (1929) I.K.B 99, 102. A person cannot therefore corroborate himself
as the Learned Chief Justice pointed out, the witness only needed to
repeat his story some 25 times in order to get 25 corroborations of it.
See: R. v. Christie (1914) A.C 545.
I would therefore agree with Mr. Mbye that the witness statement of the
complainant at the police station of the cannot amount to corroboration
of her evidence in court. But what then of the evidence of the accused
person. Certainly there cannot be any better corroborating evidence than
his admissions both on oath and in his voluntary and cautionary
statements Exhibits 1 and 2. It is settled that the guilt of an accused
person can be proved by his confessional statement, or by circumstantial
evidence or by evidence of eye witness of the crime. See: Igabele v. The
State 25 NSCQR 321 at 348-349. Similarly, in the case of The Queen v.
Oblasa (1962) 1 AU NLR 6ST it was held that if a person makes a free and
voluntary confession which is direct and positive and is properly proved,
he may be convicted on the confession alone without any further
evidence. See: James Obe Acha bua v. The State (1976) 12 SC 63.
Furthermore, it is a fact that the complainant got pregnant after having
sexual intercourse with the accused person and which pregnancy the
accused has not denied. Infact it is his evidence that the child delivered
by the complainant is being taken care of by his people. I therefore in
light of the above I find as a fact that the evidence of PW3 has been
sufficiently corroborated and hold that the prosecutions has proven
beyond reasonable doubt that the accused had carnal knowledge of the
complainant.
On the second issue of whether the prosecution has proved that the
complainant was under 18 years of age at the time of the alleged offence.
The complainant P.W3, testified that she was 18 years. She identified her
birth certificate and tendered same in evidence which was admitted
dispite the objection and marked Exhibit 4 P.W 4 Fabakary Gibba, the
complainant’s father testified that she was born in 1992 and that he got
her registered in 2003. The birth certificate having been admitted in
evidence, it becomes indisputable that as at the date of the offence, the
complainant was only 16years of age. The putting of counsel that “the
date of registration of the complainant was made up very late in the day
is of no moment. It is clear that the registration was done in 2003 well
before the offence was committed in 2009. Thus there is no link between
the two. Also, the defence has not led any evidence to buttress their point
and was not able to dent the evidence of PW4 in cross-examination. The
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