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Criminal procedure “ trial “ delays in bringing case to trial “ delay caused by prosecution in order that juvenile offender should be old enough at time of trial to be treated as an adult “ such a course unacceptable and likely to bring administration of justice into disrepute
The accused was aged 18 years at the time he was convicted of the rape of a 12-year-old girl. At the time of the offence, however, he was aged 16. Although he did not deny the act, the case took so long to get to trial that he had turned 18 before the trial. He was, accordingly, treated as an adult for the purposes of sentence.
Held, that the decision of the prosecution, as was so apparent in this case, to withhold the matter while biding time for the accused to attain the age of 18 and arraigning him before a magistrate thereafter in order to secure a stiffer sentence by virtue of the fact that the accused would not be entitled to a sentence of corporal punishment, was unacceptable. This conduct was extremely undesirable and brought the administration of justice into serious disrepute. The State should not be allowed to benefit from its own default, as it were, deliberately designed to gain an unfair advantage over young offenders.
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