Buttrose J:

In this case the appellant was convicted on three charges of causing hurt by a dangerous weapon. In one case the hurt caused was grievous and on this charge he was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment and ordered to pay $200 compensation to the complainant in default two months' imprisonment. With regard to the other two charges he was sentenced to one year's imprisonment on each charge and ordered to pay $100 to each of the complainants in default one month's imprisonment. The sentences in all cases to run concurrently. He now appeals.

There was ample evidence if accepted by the learned District Judge to support the conviction. He found as a fact that the appellant without provocation and without acting in self-defence wounded the three complainants and in doing so caused hurt to two of them and grievous hurt to the third. He accepted the evidence of the prosecution witnesses on this point and rejected the evidence of the defence and was satisfied beyond all reasonable doubt that the appellant was guilty on all three charges.

Notwithstanding this it was argued that the learned District Judge had erred in law in admitting certain evidence. No attempt was made on the hearing of the appeal to deal with the merits or the learned District Judge's findings of fact and although some twelve grounds of appeal were put forward in the Petition only one was persevered with.

It was submitted on behalf of the appellant that evidence which was inadmissible was admitted by the learned District Judge, particularly with reference to the alleged incident at the Delta Road work-site on the morning of 21 March 1962 and this prejudiced the fair trial of the appellant.

Now the assaults which formed the subject matter of the three charges against the appellant all occurred at about 9.45 on the night of 21 March 1962. The evidence was that on that very same morning an incident occurred between the appellant and one Simpson a fellow labourer at the Delta Road work-site in which Samsuddin one of the complainants intervened. It appeared that during the course of this incident the appellant struck Simpson and Samsuddin, who was on top of a piling frame nearby, called out that it was not right for the appellant to hit such a weak man and the Union could deal with the matter. According to Simpson's evidence the appellant said to Samsuddin, "if you want to you can come down too," to which Samsuddin replied that he did not come there to fight but to work and that he would report the matter to the Union.

The whole of that evidence was, in my view, clearly part of the res gestae and was material and relevant. Samsuddin's interference in the incident and his threat to report the matter to the Union supplied a motive for the attack on him by the appellant a few hours later. It is, in my view, on an entirely different footing to evidence tending to show the previous bad character of the appellant or to evidence of similar acts tending to show that the appellant is likely to have committed the offence for which he is being tried.

The only other point argued on the appeal was one of misdirection but there was, in my opinion, no substance in it.

This is sufficient to dispose of the appeal but I think I should add that if I am wrong and the evidence is inadmissible and had been excluded the learned District Judge could not, in my opinion, have arrived at any other conclusion than the one which he did. No objection whatever was taken to the admissibility of this evidence in the Court below and Counsel for the appellant crossexamined extensively on it. The principles to be applied where objection to the admissibility of evidence is not taken at the trial were enunciated by Viscount Simon LC in Stirland v. Director of Public Prosecution [1944] AC at p. 328 at p. 328 and it is unnecessary for me to restate them.

There is one further matter to which I think I should refer and that is the statement in the learned District Judge's grounds of dec