Sir Derek Cons C:

The genesis of this appeal is a wedding that took place in Kg Sg Pandan, which is in the water village, on 24 February, last year.Part of the celebration was a karaoke competition held on a raised platform being the verandah of a house which fronted onto one of the major walkways.One of the contestants was Majid Bin Hj Momin.It would seem that he had pre-recorded a cassette to use in the competition but which he had entrusted to Ak Abd Rahman Bin Pg Hj Mohiddin, the defendant in the Court below and the appellant in these proceedings, to hand to the D.J. at the competition.However, the defendant had not arrived at the competition by the time that Majid's turn to sing came and Majid was forced, much to his annoyance, to sing something else.After the song was over, by which time the defendant had arrived, one of Majid's friends, Shahrum bin Hj Durahim remonstrated with the defendant for not bringing Majid's tape in time, scolded him and repeatedly jabbed his finger at him.Eventually the defendant, who was at one time a national boxing champion, lost his patience and punched Shahrum, who only saved himself from being knocked into the water by catching hold of a post nearby.It would seem that a general free for all then broke out, in the course of which the defendant took hold of a kerambit, which he said he luckily found on the floor, and then in his own words to the Judge below, "swung (it) to the left and right to scare them off". He denied actually hitting anyone with it, but there was evidence from 3 witnesses that having chased people off the platform, he pursued them onto the major walkway and then onto a minor walkway where he twice slashed Hadanan Bin Hj Salleh, a man who sadly had been having nothing to do with the karaoke competition.The wounds thus inflicted 1 were a 4 / ins. long cut to the cheek and nose and a 2 1 7 / ins. cut to the chest, reaching right down into 2 the thoracic cavity.Furthermore when the kerambit was recovered later that evening from the defendant's possession, there were human blood stains found upon it.

In the light of that evidence, the Judge below convicted the defendant of the charge which had been laid against him, namely, that he voluntarily caused grievous hurt to Hadanan by means of an instrument which, used as a weapon of offence, is likely to cause death, an offence punishable under s. 326 of the Penal Code . The defendant was sentenced to imprisonment for 2 years with 1 stroke.With the help of Mr. Yusof Halim, he now appeals against that conviction.

Ground 1 of the appeal, which to a certain extent overlaps Ground 2, seeks to undermine the reliability of the 3 witnesses who implicated the defendant.The arguments in support were made fully to the Judge below in a written submission of no case to answer and were drawn to his attention again in the closing submission of defence Counsel.They included the argument which is at the heart of Ground 1, namely, that the evidence tended to suggest that the defendant was in two places at once, that is he punched Shahrum on the platform and struck Hadanan on the minor walkway.As it was common ground that the general melee was triggered off by the defendant punching Shahrum on the platform, it inevitably follows, so the argument runs, that it must have been someone else who at that moment was attacking Hadanan on the minor walkway.It is complained that the Judge did not consider or did not adequately consider this possibility, because he failed to mention it in his reserved judgment.

We are not persuaded that he did so fail.As we have just observed, the point was made more than once to him and he is not obliged to recite every detail of evidence or argument of Counsel in his judgment.Indeed, the factual conclusion to which this argument in particular would lead seems to us so unlikely in the circumstances as we perceive them, that it is not surprising that the Judge did not mention it. Questions of timing or the exact order