Thamu Of Guyuk V. The Queen (1953)

LawGlobal Hub Judgment Report – West African Court of Appeal

Criminal Law—Insanity—Criminal Code, section 28—Accused suffering from delusions—Accused knowing he was doing wrong.

Facts

Section 28 of the Criminal Code provides that:—

“A person is not criminally responsible for an act or omission if at the time of doing the act or making the omission he is in such a state of mental disease or natural mental infirmity as to deprive him of capacity to understand what he is doing, or of capacity to control his actions, or of capacity to know that he ought not to do the act or make the omission.

“A person whose mind, at the time of his doing or omitting to do an act, is affected by delusions on some specific matter or matters, but who is not otherwise entitled to the benefit of the foregoing provisions of this section, is criminally responsible for the act or omission to the same extent as if the real state of things had been such as he was induced by the delusions to believe to exist.”

Some time before the murder the applicant ran away into bush; he was brought back; his fellow-villagers regarded him as insane. On the day of the murder he was smashing something and the deceased asked him why; he said ” why ask me when you have not given me to eat for five days ?” The deceased came back to his friends, the applicant shortly after came in and stabbed him.

To the Magistrate he said that he did it because the deceased “ had been following my wife around ” and that the deceased had told his wife that he would take her
away. He was under delusion in those respects. Asked by the Magistrate whether he knew at the time of stabbing that what he was doing was wrong, he said he knew it was; asked why he did it, he said he did not know why. He was convicted of murder and applied for leave to appeal.

Held

In view of his statement to the Magistrate and of the provisions of section 28 of the Criminal Code the applicant was rightly convicted of murder.

(Editor’s Note: See also Sunday Omoni v. The King, W.A.C.A. 3116, 28th
October, 1949.)

Application dismissed.