defendants contention in those paragraphs and must be deemed to
have admitted them.
Learned counsel submitted that it is incorrect that the defendant did
not object to the admissibility of the alleged confessional statement, the
record of this court bears witness to the fact that the defendant did raise
and reserve his objection to confessional statement for the final address
stage, prosecution argument on this issue is therefore misplaced and
false.
Counsel submitted that, to prove the voluntariness of confessional
statement the law has established that the evidence of witnesses present
during the recording of the statement the prosecution called only PW1
and PW2 who testified that the statement was voluntarily made by the
defendant the evidence of their witnesses shows that PW2 was not
present to witness the recording of the statement, rather it was the
defendant is relatives that were present when the purported statement
was recorded, but surprisingly the prosecution did not call any of the
defendant is relative alleged to be present to confirmed the
voluntariness of the statement. Counsel referred the court to the case of
LASE V THE STATE 2017 LPELR 42466 (SC)
Learned defence counsel submitted that to ground a conviction, a
retracted confessional statement must be corroborated by some
evidence however slight she further submitted that PW1’s and PW2’s
evidence was limited to the process of obtaining the confessional
statement PW3 evidence was entirely hearsay, PW4 evidence was
materially inconsistent with PW5’s evidence, the confessional
statement (Exhibit A and A1 and Exhibit B while PW5 evidence was
limited to the tendering of Exhibit B, during which PW5 confirmed the
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