Howes J:

The accused appellant was for over nine years Chief Clerk on the Batang Malakka Estate. He was in full charge of the estate office and one of his duties was to look after estate accounts. Some time towards the end of 1936, the Manager of the estate one Mr. Vowler, as a result of certain information received by him, looked into the estate accounts and found therein an item of $737-50 entered in the cash book as a payment to a firm known as Sin Loong Chong. It was discovered on further investigation that the counterfoil of the cheque was made out to Sin Loong Chong but that the cheque was made out in the name of Messrs. KPM Mohamed Sultan Brothers. Further investigations disclosed the fact that the cheque was handed to KPM Mohamed Sultan Brothers. The account of this firm with the estate showed that $437-50 of the cheque for $737-50 was appropriated towards payment of their account and $300 was handed back as cash. This sum of $300 entered in the ledger account of the estate as a cash payment was handed to the appellant. At the May Assizes holden at Malacca before Mr. WK Horne J sitting with a jury, the appellant was charged with having committed falsification of accounts under s. 477a of the Penal Code and criminal breach of trust as a servant under s. 408 of the Penal Code. At the trial the prosecution sought to adduce evidence of system. Counsel for the defence objected to the admission of this evidence and his objection was overruled. The appellant was found guilty on both charges and sentenced on the first charge to six months rigorous imprisonment and a fine $1,000 or 12 months in default and on the second charge to six months rigorous imprisonment, the sentences to run concurrently. The accused appealed and the appeal was heard before the Court of Criminal Appeal. The Court dismissed the appeal in an oral judgment which was delivered by Terrell A-G CJ.

Terrell A-G CJ - In this case the Court is agreed that the Appeal be dismissed.

Among the various points raised so ably by Mr. Braga in this appeal, there is the very difficult question as to the cases in which evidence of system can be admitted.

In the present case the Court finds that such evidence of previous transactions can be admitted under ss. 14 and 15 of the Evidence Ordinance - the illustrations to s. 14 make that quite clear.

It is not only to rebut the defence of accident that such evidence can be admitted; it can also in a proper case he called to prove a state of mind, to prove criminal intention.

In the case before the Court this evidence was particularly relevant because the accused did not deny that he had made the false entries, he did not deny that he had the money. He said that he made the false entries under the direction of Mr. Vowler and that Mr. Vowler had the money. So surely it must be relevant to look to previous transactions to see what the previous method of business had been, so as to arrive at a conclusion whether or not that defence would hold water. Is it likely that Mr. Vowler would have asked the accused to falsify various items in the account to the extent of one or two dollars? Still more is it likely that the accused would have continued to falsify the accounts on Mr. Vowler's instructions when Mr. Vowler was not in the country? That is what the accused alleged.

It appears that that was substantially the defence and in order to rebut it this other evidence was absolutely relevant.

There is nothing so far as I can see inconsistent with what I said in the judgment which has been cited in the Malayan Law Journal (Teo Koon Seng vs Rex, 5 MLJ, p. 10). It is quite a different case and evidence of an entirely separate transaction had been brought in to prove guilty intention. There was no connection between the two sets of circumstances in that case. The whole issue was whether the accused had attempted to extort money or not. If the Court was satisfied that he had extorted money, no explanation was possible, and it wa