Rex V. Issac Olatunji Kuge (1936)

LawGlobal Hub Judgment Report – West African Court of Appeal

Appellant convicted on one count for stealing contra section 390 (6) Criminal Code and on eleven counts for fraudulent false accounting contra section 438 (c) Criminal Code, and sentenced to the maximum penalty of seven years’ imprisonment with hard labour on each count, sentences to run concurrently.

Held : In absence of previous convictions case not so flagrant as to justify maximum sentences. Sentences reduced to four years’ imprisonment with hard labour.

E. A. Akerele for Appellant.

Ivor Brace for Crown.

The following judgment was delivered :— KINGDON, C. J., NIGERIA.

The offence in this case is a serious one, and it is necessary for a heavy sentence to be imposed in order to check the defrauding of native administrations. But there are no previous convictions and the case is not so flagrant as to justify the maximum sentence prescribed by law.

The appeal against the sentences is accordingly allowed. The sentences passed at the trial are quashed and in substitution therefor the appellant is sentenced to four years’ imprisonment with hard labour on each count of the twelve counts upon which he was convicted.

The sentences to run concurrently.