CORROBORATION

The general rule is that in all criminal & civil cases, corroboration is not necessary because the evidence
of just a single witness will suffice in proving a case. However, the courts do allow corroboration to
support the facts of the case and that would generally mean another witness or a compliment. When a
person other than the accused gives evidence in a case, it is generally a testimony (i.e. what he/she knows
about the case), but at other times comes as a document of some sort. The Locus Classicus case of
Corroboration is R v BASKERVILLE (1916) 2 KB 658, which defines the concept sufficiently for all
purposes & instances. Corroboration in this case was generally explained as follows:

“…independent testimony, which affects the accused by connecting or tending to connect him with
the crime.”

This definition of the concept can be dissected into four (4) segments, outlining the criteria a person
corroborating a case should meet:

Corroboration must be admissible;

Corroboration must be independent of the evidence;
Corroboration must connect the accused with the crime; and

It is a legal impossibility for one to corroborate himself/herself because it could be considered a

complaint rather than corroboration of that complaint due to the dependent or similar nature of the
complaint. A story can only be corroborated by a third party. That is why in sexual offences, where a girl
tells her mother that she had been sexually abused, she cannot corroborate her daughter’s story in court
because if she attempts to do so, she will only be restating for the court the account of her daughter.
However, in an event where the mother actually witnessed her daughter’s assault, she can corroborate
because her account will not be dependent on whether or not her daughter told her but by her own
discovery. Other possible sources may include doctor’s medical observations or any other third party
present at the time of commission of the offence. In other words, the source of the testimony given by any
third party must be independent of the original complaint and he/she must have acquired it from some
other means, like visual or auditory observations. In addition, independence is also where a third party
and the perpetrator had no communication whatsoever, as it may be prima facie seen as a ruse to concoct
a story in order to evade justice.

Again, to reiterate, it is a general rule of the law of evidence that corroboration must be independent
evidence. Given that it does not meet the threshold of an absolute rule in law, there are a few exceptions:

Corroboration required as a matter of law; and

Corroboration required as a matter of practice.

1 |UNIVERSITY OF SIERRA LEONE, FOURAH BAY COLLEGE

FINAL HONS II, LAW OF EVIDENCE/CORROBORATION
MR. FRANCIS GABBIDON, ESQ.
CORROBORATION REQUIRED AS A MATTER OF LAW
Under this ambit, the procedure is such that if one is charged to court for any of the following offences,
and the jury decide that the corroboration is invalid, the accused will be acquitted & discharged. In other
words, corroboration is mandatory.

Where someone is charged with treason, only corroboratory evidence required as a matter of law
will be allowed to convict him. Where such evidence cannot be attained or held to a standard fit to
convict, the accused will be entitled to a discharge & acquittal. In the 2020 treason trial of Paolo
Conteh, a Sierra Leonean national, where he was charged with, among many other things, treason
for carrying a loaded firearm into the Legislature. He was acquitted of all counts of treason due to
lack of evidence and that no one could corroborate the accusations of the prosecution. Simpliciter,
where there is no corroboration, there has been no treason committed. In Sierra Leone, the
Treason & State Offences Act (1963)
There must also be corroboration to successfully charge & convict someone of speeding. In other
words, in the absence of the testimony of a police officer present, radar gun or a speedometer, it is
legally impossible to charge someone with such a road traffic offence. In Sierra Leone, this offence
creates a lot of adversity for courts due to the lack of equipment to detect speeding, which was put
out of use in Sierra Leone in a case where it was proven that the speedometer was faulty.
Where someone is charged with perjury (i.e. where one swears to an oath or affirms, and gives a
false testimony), the party cannot be convicted of the offence without valid corroboration. In the
BASKERVILLE case, Baskerville, in breaching the Perjury Act (1911) told a lie under oath, which
meant that he did not only perjure himself but he also provided independent evidence, which only
corroborated the evidence of his offence, thus proving that he was in fact driving while on the
phone.
In affiliation matters (i.e. matters where a father, is taken to court to answer for refusing to
financially support his/her child, or “child support”), such a claim must as well be backed by
independent evidence in order to successfully corroborate the position of whether the child is the
biological offspring of the parent. The corroboratory evidence general in this case is a
DNA/Paternity/Maternity test, or some bloodwork. In Sierra Leone, it is used but mostly avoided
because of the expenses it carries. Generally, the financial burden in such proceedings go toward
the male.
With regards to unsworn evidence of a young child, which is one of the classes of persons that can
make an affirmation rather than a sworn oath, there must be corroboration. The general
circumstance where this is prevalent is where a 5-6 year old child is called to testify in a sexual
offences matter. Where such a testimony has been made, the corroboratory evidence will normally
come in the form of medical documentation & opinions from pathologists and gynecologists. In
Sierra Leone, there are “Rainbow Centers”, which essentially are branches of an institution that
deal with very young victims of sexual assault/pedophilia by vividly examining them and
presenting their finding to the courts.

2 |UNIVERSITY OF SIERRA LEONE, FOURAH BAY COLLEGE

FINAL HONS II, LAW OF EVIDENCE/CORROBORATION
MR. FRANCIS GABBIDON, ESQ.
 Another class of offences that require corroboration as required as a matter of law is electoral
offences. Where one is charged with an election offence, like voting while impersonating another
individual, such a claim must be corroborated in order to secure a conviction.

In all of the above instances, where corroboration is required as a matter of law, this essentially means
that the accused will be discharged & acquainted of any of the offences if corroboration is non-existent.

FORMS OF CORROBORATION
In an event where a case of this nature arises in practice, it is advised to consider whether corroboration
is existent and what form it comes in. The various forms of corroboration are as follows:

Testimony from another individual

Document.
Bloodstains & DNA evidence.
Telling lies.

CORROBORATION REQUIRED AS A MATTER OF PRACTICE

When corroboration is required as a matter of practice, there need not be corroboration but the judge has
a duty of warning the jury of the dangers of acting on uncorroborated evidence (i.e. what is important is
the warning must be given). This means that if the jury believes the evidence before them, they can go
ahead and pass either a verdict of conviction or acquittal, provided that the judge had provided them
with a warning. There is no specific formulation in which the warning must come in, other than the fact
that it must be easily comprehendible to the jury. It is for the jury to decide what weight/validity it wants
to place on the evidence and what inferences it wants to draw from it. Despite the warning given by the
judge, the final say lies with the jury. If the warning is not given by the judge, that could mean the end of
the case and it could also be a ground for appeal and if the appeal succeeds, the conviction will be
quashed.

One of the first instances where corroboration is required as a matter of practice concerns the
sworn evidence of children. When children give sworn evidence in a criminal case, there must be
corroboration as a matter of practice. In this instance, it is necessary that a warning be given about
the evidence that the child is giving because of the age & vulnerability of that child. The judge must
warn the jury of the evidence given by the child and the danger of convicting any person charged
in that case if there is no corroboration. It is not of utmost importance for corroboration to exist
but the warning from the judge must occur. For instance, a judge may warn a jury present for the
testimony of an 11-year-old boy, claiming to have been raped by someone, to look past his
complaint and see whether there is anything to corroborate his story. This is because such young
persons are prone to intimidation, threats and persuasion, which may lead them to commit
perjury. This is generally for children between 5 – 14 years.
Another class of instances is sexual offences. Where one is charged with a sexual offence, and a
child or woman that is alleged to have been abused is called to testify, the jury must be warned by
the judge of the dangers of convicting the accused without any form of corroboratory evidence.

3 |UNIVERSITY OF SIERRA LEONE, FOURAH BAY COLLEGE

FINAL HONS II, LAW OF EVIDENCE/CORROBORATION
MR. FRANCIS GABBIDON, ESQ.
 The victims are entitled to testify & make their stories known but it is still the duty of the judge to
warn the jury of what to consider in convicting such accused persons based on those stories,
without any corroboration and further advice to look beyond the stories and try to identify any
corroboration.
There is also the set of accomplices (i.e. one who aids & abets the commission of an offence). When
an accomplice testifies for the prosecution against the accused, the judge must yet again warn the
jury of the dangers of convicting the accused without any corroboration. This is especially
important because given that the accomplice is a former partner of the accused, he/she may have
their own purpose to serve. In DAVIES v DPP (1954) AC 378, the court gave three (3) instances
of persons that can be accredited with the name “accomplice”:
 Parties to the offence charged;
 Receivers as accomplices of the thieves from whom they received stolen goods; and
 Parties to other offences committed by the accused.

This only applies when an accomplice gives evidence for the prosecution & not for the defence. This was
the position of the law in R v PRAGER, R v BAGLEY & R v LOVERIGE. In these cases, the court will
inform the jury as to what evidence amounts to corroboration (i.e. all independent evidence, which does
not come from the witness) and once he has done that and has given sufficient warning, his role has
thusly been completed; now leaving the responsibility to the jury to convict or acquit. It is the
independent evidence that amounts to corroboration, which implicates the accused in the case.

TELLING LIES
Another form of corroboration is lies. This is when a person accused is testifying falsely, with lies.
Moreover, when that person testifies and tells lies, those lies can resolve against him in some form of
corroboration. Therefore, the question is, can a lie amount to corroboration? When a witness testifies in
court and tells a lie, that lie can indeed amount to corroboration, provided that certain conditions are
satisfied. Those conditions were captured in the case of R v LUCAS (1981) QB 720, where it was stated
that four (4) conditions must be fulfilled before a defendant’s lies can be seen as confirming or
supporting the prosecution’s case:

The lie must be deliberate;

The lie must relate to a material issue;
The lie must be clearly shown to be such (i.e. a lie); and
The motive for the lie must be a realization of guilt and a fear for the truth.

MUTUAL CORROBORATION
If a child gives unsworn evidence, she cannot be corroborated by unsworn evidence. She can only be
corroborated by someone who gives sworn evidence. Therefore, there can be mutual corroboration,
provided the unsworn evidence is complemented/corroborated by sworn evidence. This was the position
stated in DPP v HESTER (1973) AC 295.

4 |UNIVERSITY OF SIERRA LEONE, FOURAH BAY COLLEGE

FINAL HONS II, LAW OF EVIDENCE/CORROBORATION
MR. FRANCIS GABBIDON, ESQ.
WOMEN THAT HAVE BEEN SEXUALLY ASSAULTED
If a woman/girl complains to the police that she has been sexually assaulted, can that complaint amount
to corroboration? Procedurally, this is one of the many crimes where corroboration is necessary for
proving guilt. The complaint by itself cannot amount to corroboration because it is not independent of
what she has stated already. Therefore, because it is not dependent, the court looks for something else to
back up the complaint. In other words, the evidence must emanate from a source other than the witness
who is to be corroborated.

In R v WHITEHEAD (1929) 1 KB 99, a girl went & complained to the police that she had been sexually
assaulted by Whitehead. She even went as far as telling her mother of the assault, who accompanied her
to the police station to give a statement on what her daughter told her about her assault. The questions of
law was whether that complaint can amount to corroboration and whether the mother’s statement could
as well amount to corroboration. The court said no; they need independent evidence out of her & her
mother’s complaint as without it, the assaulted could only repeat her story to the police forty-five times;
and duly informed the mother that they could not accept her testimony as it was also not independent
from what her daughter said. The court stated that the mother’s statement will be admissible only to
show consistency of the complaint but not so to corroborate and the court, in this instance, will only
allow independent evidence. There was no conviction.

In R v REDPATH (1962) 46 Cr App R 319, a little girl, who was seen going into a house by bystanders,
was also seen leaving the house roughed up and in a distressed manner. When she was leaving, she did
not realize that someone was watching her. When this matter went to court, the bystander was allowed
to testify as to the girl’s condition when she was leaving & his testimony was held admissible because it
was independent of her distressed condition as she did not know of the bystanders’ presence; and it was
this testimony that led to the conviction of Redpath. If it were only on the grounds of the distressed
condition, Redpath would have been acquitted due to lack of corroboration.

In R v CHAUHAN (1981) 73 Cr App R 232, which is somewhat synonymous to Redpath, a girl went into
a house, where she was sexually assaulted by Chauhan. While the assault was being carried out, in one
room of the house, another person in another room in the same house observed the girl flee that room in
haste after being assaulted. The question of law was where could corroboration possibly emanate from?
The third party in the other room testified against Chauhan, which the court held to be admissible on the
merit of its independence of the little girl’s claim.

In R v DOWLEY (1983) Crim LR 168, a man saw a woman leaving a house, walked a rather far distance
(over a mile), meaning that a reasonable period of time has elapsed but the court still allowed the
independent party to testify.

5 |UNIVERSITY OF SIERRA LEONE, FOURAH BAY COLLEGE

FINAL HONS II, LAW OF EVIDENCE/CORROBORATION
MR. FRANCIS GABBIDON, ESQ.