GEORGE NSWANA v THE PEOPLE (No. 14 of 1989) [1989] ZMSC 2 (27 July 1989);

The application was found in possession of a car two days after it was stolen. The correct car number was etched on its windows and appeared on the licence disc but the vehicle carried a false number plate. When the applicant was apprehended he produced a blue book which bore a false name of the purported owner. At his trial he said he was in possession of the car as a driver of his employer who had asked him to drive it. In D an earlier explanation to the police he said he had borrowed the car from the person he said in evidence was his employer. The trial magistrate found that as a prudent driver the applicant must have noticed the suspicious features surrounding the car and, that coupled with recent possession and that the applicant's explanation was not true, convicted him. 

In the Supreme Court he argued that the telling of lies does not necessarily indicate guilt and the magistrate's finding that the applicant did not obtain possession from another person should be rejected.

Held:

   (i)   The inference of guilt based on recent possession, particularly where no explanation is offered F which might reasonably be true, rests on the absence of any reasonable likelihood that the goods might have changed hands in the meantime and the consequent high degree of probability that the person in recent possession himself obtained them and committed the offence. Where suspicious features surround the case that indicate that the applicant cannot reasonably claim to have been in G innocent possession, the question remains whether the applicant, not being in innocent possession, was the thief or a guilty receiver or retainer.

   (ii)   The distinction is that a receiver receives with guilty knowledge at the time of receipt while the offence of retaining involves guilty knowledge of theft but acquired after the receipt of the property.