5 forcefully had sexual intercourse with me…” The accused denied this in his evidence before the Court. However, by virtue of section 180 (2) (a) of the Evidence Act it is mandatory for the evidence of the prosecutrix to be corroborated in this direction. It is thus settled law that in cases of a sexual character it is eminently desirable that the evidence of the complainant be strengthened by other evidence implicating the accused person in some material particular. Any evidence tending to confirm, support and strengthen other evidence sought to be corroborated would be sufficient for this purpose. See the case of D.P.P V. KILBOURNE (1973) A.C. 729 @ 758. Also settled, is that corroboration need not consist of direct evidence that the accused person committed the offence, nor need it amount to a confirmation of the whole account given by the witness, provided that it corroborates the evidence in some respects material to the charge. See the case of R. V. GOLDSTEIN (1914) 11 CAR 27. I must say straight away that the issue of corroboration is of crucial importance to a section 121 offence and that there are two issues to be corroborated here; the act of sexual intercourse and the element of consent or the lack of it. The best evidence of corroboration of sexual intercourse is usually a report of the medical examination of the victim. Exhibit “C”- the medical report of the prosecutrix corroborates the fact of sexual intercourse when it states at column 5 thus “… hymen broken… large deposit of semen was seen at the posterior fornix…” This medical examination was conducted the following day after the incident. The medical findings authoritatively controvert the

Sélectionner le paragraphe cible3