Aladesuru v The Queen: PC 1956

Directors of the Standard Bank in Nigeria appealed from a conviction for false accounting. They had appealed to the West African Court of Appeal who said referring to the difference between civil and criminal appeals: ‘This difference has been pointed out by this court times without number and so we have no sympathy for any appellant who still puts up a wrong ground of appeal. Even if we had granted an amendment of the ground of appeal we would not have been disposed to hear arguments on facts . . The first ground of appeal that judgment is against the weight of evidence is no ground of appeal in criminal matters but is an appropriate ground in civil matters where verdicts are to be arrived at by preponderance of evidence. In criminal matters the proper ground of appeal is that the verdict is unreasonable or cannot be supported having regard to the evidence . . Even if we had granted an amendment of the ground of appeal, we would not have been disposed to hear arguments on facts.’
Held: The appeal failed.
Lord Tucker discussed the possibility of the Court of Appeal of Nigeria setting aside a decision on the facts. He said: ‘It will be observed that the language of the West African Court of Appeal Ordinance follows that of the English Criminal Appeal Act, 1907, under which it has long been established that the appeal is not by way of rehearing as in civil cases on appeals from a judge sitting alone, but is a limited appeal which precludes the court from reviewing the evidence and making its own evaluation thereof. The position is correctly stated at page 346 of the 33rd edition of Archbold’s Criminal Pleading, Evidence and Practice as follows:
‘In order to succeed an appellant must show, in the words of the statute, that the verdict is unreasonable or cannot be supported having regard to the evidence. It is not a sufficient ground of appeal to allege that the verdict is against the weight of evidence. It is also to be observed that an appeal on this ground does not lie as of right but only by leave of the court.”

Judges:

Lord Tucker

Citations:

[1956] AC 49, 39 Cr App R 184

Jurisdiction:

Commonwealth

Cited by:

CitedAttorney General for Jersey v O’Brien (Jersey) PC 14-Feb-2006
(Court of Appeal of Jersey) The appellant had been convicted of laundering the proceeds of her husband’s drug trafficking. The Attorney-General now appealed against her successful appeal on sentence and confiscation order. Both she and her husband . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Criminal Practice

Updated: 18 May 2022; Ref: scu.279057