Effect of Retracted Extra-Judicial Statement of Witnesses in Nigerian Courts

Abstract

This article examined the effect of the case of R v Golder, in which the statement of the inconsistent rule was made in relation to the evidence of a witness to the prosecution. It is argued that, notwithstanding that an accused person is a competent witness, the rule was formulated to apply only to a retracted extra-judicial confession of an ordinary witness and the rule is not to be expanded to cover a retracted extra-judicial confession of an accused person.