COMFORT AND ANOTHER V. THE REPUBLIC

OSEI-HWERE J.

On 8 March 1974 I allowed this appeal and set aside the conviction and sentence of the appellants and substituted an acquittal and discharge and ordered that the fines imposed if paid should be refunded forthwith to the appellants. I reserved my reasons which I now proceed to give. The first and second appellants were jointly charged in count 1 for assaulting one Peter Adjei and the first appellant alone was charged in count 2 for assaulting one Abena Frema. The prosecution’s case, in a nutshell, disclosed that the complainants, Peter Adjei and Abena Frema (the first and second prosecution witnesses respectively) had attended a spiritualist meeting which the first appellant had conducted at her house to exorcise evil spirits and that in the course of the meeting the first appellant, who is acknowledged by the group as a prophetess and was therefore the chief actress in the drama, had hit the head of Abena Frema several times with a stick in her effort to exorcise Abena F…