THE QUEEN v. OLUKAYODE ADESOLA SAMUEL

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JUDGMENT

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Mortimer JA (giving the judgment of the Court): The applicant hails from Nigeria. On 18 December 1995 he was convicted by Deputy Judge Andree-Wiltens of two offences of obtaining money by deception, two offences of using false cheques and two offences of false accounting. He was sentenced to a total of 3 1/2 years imprisonment. Initially he sought leave to appeal those convictions. With our leave he has abandoned that application but he pursues his application for leave to appeal against sentence out of time. We have granted him leave to apply out of time on the basis that he may have been misled as to the decision.

The application

2. The offences for which he was convicted were, in brief, two transactions of obtaining the proceeds of false cheques. The first cheque was for US$26,500 and the second cheques was US$36,780. He deposited the cheques, one with Jardines and the other with Schroders and then obtaining the proceeds of the cheques before it had been discovered that they were false.

3. The judge described those transactions as determined and utterly dishonest actions designed to obtain good cash from two cheques which the accused knew to be bad. Everything done related to obtaining the money, he added:

"The overall criminality, I felt, could be adequately reflected by a penalty of three years six months imprisonment."

That sentence for the overall criminality of these matters in the judgment of this Court cannot be challenged. It is neither wrong in principle nor is it manifestly excessive.

4. The judge turned to consider whether there was any matter of mitigation which could reduce the sentence. He came to the conclusion that there was none and rightly so. He did, however, say that the applicant had caused no end of unnecessary difficulty by refusing to cooperate at trial. That is not a remark with which this Court can agree, although there is nothing by way of cooperation which could have induced the court to pass a more lenient sentence or to reduce it. This was a case where the applicant did nothing other than require that the offences should be proved against him, which they were.

5. We are aware that the applicant's family circumstances are matters of concern and on a human level, this Court must have sympathy. But in the end, these sentences were entirely justified by serious offences. The application is refused.