BRETT, F.J.:-This is an appeal by the plaintiff from the decision of the High Court of Eastern Nigeria dismissing his claim for damages for malicious prosecution. The appeal turns not on the merits of the case but on the procedure adopted at the court of trial. As regards that procedure, the appellant does not challenge the accuracy of the record, so far as it goes, but he has lodged an affidavit supplementing it in various respects, and as no counter affidavit has been lodged it must be taken that for the purposes of this appeal the respondents accept the correctness of the appellant's affidavit.
It was common ground on the pleadings that the appellant had been tried and convicted in the Magistrate's Court, Enugu, on a charge of stealing property belonging to the respondents, and that the conviction was set aside by the High Court on appeal. The questions in issue on the pleadings, in addition to the quantum of damages, were whether the respondents were the persons responsible for se…