R v Pakkies

• Jurisdiction: South Africa
• Citation: 1956 (2) SA 145 (E)

R v Pakkies
1956 (2) SA 145 (E)

1956 (2) SA p145

Citation	1956 (2) SA 145 (E)
Court	Eastern Districts Local Division
Judge	Price JP and van der Riet J
Heard	March 6, 1956
Judgment	March 6, 1956

Flynote : Sleutelwoorde

Criminal procedure — Evidence — Confession — What F constitutes — Admission by traveller on national road to an inspector who stopped him that he was conveying certain herbs — Charge one of contravening Motor Carrier Transportation Act — Admission in circumstances a confession — Inadmissibility of — Appeal — Grounds of — Confession wrongly admitted — Specific G reference thereto should be made in grounds.

Headnote : Kopnota

Appellant had been convicted of contravening the Motor Carrier Transportation Act, it being alleged that without the necessary certificate he had carried in his motor car certain goods on a public road in the course of his business and for the purpose of furthering his business. The only evidence was that of a road transportation inspector H who stated that he had stopped appellant on a national road and interrogated him and appellant had said to him that he was travelling from one place to another, that he was a herb specialist and that he was conveying certain herbs for distribution. The inspector had not opened the boot of the car to examine the articles. In an appeal,

Held, that the statement was in the circumstances a confession.

Held, further, as the Court could not infer that all the necessary elements which went to make a confession admissible were present, that the conviction had to be set aside.

1956 (2) SA p146

When an appellant seeks to raise the point that a confession has been wrongly admitted, he should make specific reference thereto in the notice of appeal so that the other side may know exactly what case it has to meet. A

Case Information

Appeal from a conviction in a magistrate's court. The facts appear from the reasons for judgment:

G. A. L. Dold, for the appellant: The only evidence on record on which the accused could have been convicted is in the confession he is alleged to have made. This confession is inadmissible as there is no proof that it was made freely and voluntarily while the accused was in his sound B and sober senses and without his having been unduly influenced thereto. See sec. 244, Act 56 of 1955. The onus is on the Crown to prove these factors affirmatively. It cannot be inferred from the circumstances that the necessary elements were present. See Gardiner & Lansdown...