10 HH 547-23 CA 480/19 We agree with the trial court’s finding that the video evidence was confirmed by other State evidence either admitted or not controverted by the appellant at his trial. It was common cause hat the person appearing in the video was the appellant. He appears in the video wearing regalia identical to what he was wearing measuring at the Command Centre on the 31 July, 2018 as an election observer. The appellant did not say he was similarly dressed and wearing the election monitor’s bib on any other day or at any other place. The utterances attributed to him are accurate in as far as they relate to information peculiarly known by him about his personal involvement in the activities of the MDC Alliance political party. He was indeed at the places for the activities stated by him in the video. The determination of appeals by this court is governed by s 38 of the High Court Act [Chapter 7:06]. We will quash the appellant’s conviction in the exercise of appellate jurisdiction, only, if we are satisfied that the conviction is unreasonable or unjustified or wrong at law or that on any other ground there was a miscarriage of justice. (See subsection 2 of s38 of the High Court Act which states that nnotwithstanding that the High Court is of the opinion that any point raised on appeal, might be decided in favour of the appellant, no conviction or sentence shall be set aside or altered unless the High Court considers that a substantial miscarriage of justice has actually occurred). In this case, the appellant was not consistent in his defence. The first contradiction was that it was one thing for him to contest the video evidence on the basis that the video was edited. What this means is that he did not contest the existence of the video in which he appears making certain utterances. It was a completely different thing for him to object to the video on the basis that it was create by the Police. The other contradiction was that the appellant initially denied the charge on the basis that he had not made the utterances attributed to him in the charge. He said the inflammatory utterances were added as ‘voice over’ to his picture manipulated by his State to make it appear as if he had addressed a press conference and made the said inflammatory utterances. After conviction, all that changed. He confessed in mitigation that he uttered the words forming the basis of the charge “…as a result of temptation and emotional stress”. He said his moral blameworthiness was reduced by the fact that he succumbed to temptation and the ‘circumstances surrounding him’. In his argument on appeal before us, the appellants’ counsel sought to downplay the submissions in mitigation. He argued that the mitigation did not

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