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Case No.:

HC-CR-REV-283

Court:

Court of Appeal

Issue No.:

1962

Principles

·  Evidence—Finger-prints—Conviction possible on uncorroborated finger-print evidence, but such evidence must be weighed by court

After a housebreaking in Khartoum finger-prints were found which the finger-print expert identified as those of the accused. Accused was arrested in l and convicted in Khartoum on no evidence but the finger-prints.
Held: Although a conviction is possible on uncorroborated evidence of finger prints, a court must satisfy itself of the value of the evidence; conviction here is quashed.

Judgment

(CRIMINAl. REVISION)

SUDAN GOVERNMENT v. FARAH EL DOUD GOUROUN

HC-CR-REV-283-

Salah El Din Hassan P.J. April 25, 1962 —The prisoner was thrice convicted by the Police Magistrate, Khartoum, under Penal Code, s. 396, and sentenced to imprisonment for i8 months to run concurrently in two cases, and consecutively in the third case.

It is against these convictions that this application is brought.

On January 3, 4 and, 1962, three houses in Khartoum were broken into by a thief who got inside them by breaking windows. In two houses the cupboards were opened and clothes were found scattered in the rooms, but nothing was stolen. In the third house a sum of £S. was found missing. The thief left no traces other than his finger impressions on the panes of the window glass through which he broke into the houses. The finger-print expert photographed these finger impressions, and after making a comparative test with the finger-prints of the habitual offenders deposited in the Criminal Investigation Department, he identified the finger-prints of the prisoner as identical. A proclamation was made and the prisoner was arrested in Kosti and was brought Jefore the Police Magistrate, Khartoum. The prisoner demed the whole thing, and on the evidence of the finger-print expert he was convicted of housebreaking into the three houses.

As far as I know there is no precedent in the Sudan in which a person has been solely and entirely convicted upon similarity of thumb marks or finger-prints without any corroborating testimony or circumstances to support this evidence.

In England the first case in which finger-print evidence was accepted without corroborative testimony was the famous case known as the “Castleton Ruling “; Herbert Castleton, convicted at York Assizes 1909 of a burglary at Huddersfield, and sentenced to three years’ penal servitude, had left a candle behind him and his finger-prints upon it. This was the only evidence upon which he was convicted. But the decision of the Court of Criminal Appeal was twice questioned two years later.

I have gone through several English authorities as far as my little time could permit me and I have come to the following general conclusion.

The evidence given by a finger-print expert need not necessarily be corroborated; but the court must satisfy itself as to the value of the evidence of the expert in the same way as it must satisfy itself of the value of other evidence; otherwise any conviction based on finger-print evidence without corroboration is bad.

Accordingly, I have quashed the finding and sentence in these cases, mainly because I am not satisfied that the court below has thoroughly convinced itself as to the value of the expert evidence, as there was no mention in the record as to his qualifications. Secondly, there is nothing to indicate that the court has made a comparison of the finger impressions by itself, guided by the expert’s testimony.