S v Ngubenkomo

• Jurisdiction: South Africa
• Judge: Jennett JP and Kotzé J
• Judgment Date: 08 February 1968
• Citation: 1968 (2) SA 109 (E)
• Hearing Date: 02 February 1968
• Court: Eastern Cape Division

F Jennett, J.P.:

The appellant, a Bantu male, was convicted of the theft of 11 sheep and he was sentenced for that offence. His defence was that the sheep in question were his own property. The magistrate held that the complainant had established that the sheep belonged to him.

G An appeal to this Court succeeded. In allowing the appeal the Court dealt with what it regarded as two serious criticisms of the complainant's evidence.

The judgment then proceeded:

'In the circumstances it seems to me that the magistrate should have had a serious doubt as to whether the complainant's identification of the sheep was reliable and, moreover, whether the appellant's claim to ownership of the sheep might not in the circumstances reasonably have H been true. It was not necessary that the magistrate should have believed the appellant's version but he was bound to acquit him if he could not hold that it was not reasonably possible that the appellant's version might be true.'

And later:

'In my view, therefore, despite any valid criticism which might be made of the appellant's version, the magistrate was not, on the evidence before us, entitled to hold that the appellant's claim to the sheep might not reasonably be true and he should therefore not have convicted him. In holding as we do, we must not be understood to be finding that the sheep in question do belong to the...