Ong Hock Thye CJ (Malaya) (delivering the judgment of the Court):

On 8 June 1968 two sacks were discovered floating in the Malacca River some distance apart. In one was a headless body with its legs chopped off at midthigh. The other contained the missing head and legs. The torso was clothed and in the trousers pockets were found some money, bills and an identity card. The police officer in charge of investigation called at the address so discovered and found one wall facing the air- well of the house spattered with blood. In the kitchen he collected two axes and a chopper. He then arrested the appellant, who was tenant of the premises. The holder of the identity card had been living there, but was missing. He was a son of the appellant, named Goh Hong Koon.

There never was a shadow of doubt that Goh Hong Koon was slain and dismembered by his father. He was last seen alive by two persons, residents in the same premises, on the night of 5 June 1968. They were sub-tenants of the appellant, sharing the back bedroom on the ground floor. The only other bedroom in the house was that used by the appellant and his wife, the deceased's step-mother. The deceased used to sleep on a camp-bed placed against the wall of the open passage-way connecting the two bedrooms. This passage faced the air-well and bathroom. The deceased, who was ill, had been seen sleeping on his camp-bed when the sub-tenants retired into their own room for the night. At about 2 a.m. they were roused from sleep by unusual noises loud enough to awaken a neighbour and kinsman of the appellant living next door. They peeped through a crevice in the plank partition of their room and saw the appellant engaged in severing the legs of the deceased. His campbed was missing the next morning. Dr. Gune, the psychiatrist called by the defence, testified that the appellant admitted killing his son.

Such being the evidence at the close of the defence it is plain that the appellant was either guilty of murder or of no offence by reason of unsoundness of mind. Section 84 of the Penal Code reads:-

Nothing is an offence which is done by a person who, at the time of doing it, by reason of unsoundness of mind, is incapable of knowing the nature of the act, or that he is doing what is either wrong or contrary to law."

The jury by a majority of 6 to 1 returned a verdict of guilty, with which the Judge concurred, and the appellant was sentenced to death. He now appeals to this Court.

The only question that can be raised in this appeal concerns the summing-up. The directions given by the Judge were copious, extending to 40 pages or over 10,000 words. Unfortunately there was an abundance of riches, much of which, we regret to say, were of little or no relevance except to an academic audience.

The first comment we would make is that directions appropriate to a charge of voluntarily causing bodily hurt resulting in death are not of general application. The facts and circumstances peculiar to each case vary widely. In particular, the subjective test of liability must at times be widely different from the objective. The latter is what an ordinary person would or was likely to foresee: see Director of Public Prosecutions v. Smith [1961] AC 290, 327. That test, of course, was the application of the presumption that every person must be presumed to intend the natural and probable consequences of his acts. Where, however, the accused suffers from a disease of the mind, it is manifest that the objective test of what is foreseeable to an ordinary person suffering from no impairment of reason can hardly apply. Indeed the validity of this general presumption had been rejected by the High Court in Australia since 1952 in Stapleton v. The Queen [1952] 86 CLR 358, 365 - a view reaffirmed in Parker v. The Queen [1963-4] 37 ALJR 3, 11 where Dixon CJ said:-

In Stapleton v. R [1952] 86 CLR 358, at p. 365, we said: 'The introduction of the maxim or statement that a man is presumed to intend the r