Rigby J (delivering oral judgment):

The appellant was convicted by the learned Magistrate of an offence under s. 66(2) of the Mental Disorders Ordinance, 1952, of having sexual intercourse with a person who was a patient and then under treatment at the Central Mental Hospital, Tanjong Rambutan, on the 2 November 1959. He was sentenced to two years' imprisonment, and he now appeals against both his conviction and sentence.

The facts of the case are briefly as follows. At about 4 a.m. on the morning of the 2 November 1959, a female attendant at one of the female wards at the Central Mental Hospital at Tanjong Rambutan, observed a male person enter the female patients' ward. The person was wearing a white shirt and khaki trousers and had his head swathed in a garment looking like a towel. The person entered the ward and went out again carrying the complainant, who was then a voluntary patient at the hospital. Apparently the female attendant, apart from shouting out, made no attempt whatsoever to pursue the male person who had carried the patient away. About 20 minutes later the disguised person returned to the ward bringing the complainant with him and depositing her at the entrance to the ward. Again apparently the female attendant made no attempt to intercept or apprehend the person. The complainant herself, when questioned, told a somewhat confused story that she had been taken outside by two or three persons and raped. She was examined six to seven hours after the incident by a Medical Officer, who found that she was not, in fact, a virgin, and he also found no evidence of spermatozoa that would indicate that sexual intercourse had recently taken place.

The sole evidence of identification in this case is that of the complainant herself. Some days later, namely, on the 14 September an identification parade was held in which 56 persons were present on the parade, those persons being the members of the staff of the hospital. The complainant was told - and quite wrongly told - by the Police Officer that there were 56 persons on the parade and the person who had raped her, and she was invited by the Police Officer to inspect the persons on the parade and point out the person who had raped her. Quite clearly that was a wholly improper direction by the Police Officer. At most he should, of course, have indicated to her that there might be present on the parade the person whom she alleged to have raped her. The complainant walked the full length of the parade without identifying any person and the Police Officer then told her that she should look at the faces of the persons on the parade. She then proceeded down the line and after she had got about half-way she pointed out the present appellant. There was no other evidence of identification. The complainant herself when giving her evidence told - at any rate as it appears on the record of the case - a somewhat confused and unintelligible story in that she stated that two persons had entered the ward and that the persons had carried out not only herself but another woman in the ward. She then said that she had, in fact, only been raped by one and not two persons. The story which she told was inconsistent with and, indeed, contradictory to, the previous statements that she made to the Doctor in charge of the hospital.

The learned Magistrate in his grounds of decision refers to the fact that he found the evidence of the complainant "unusually convincing." He then goes on to say that such evidence was corroborated by the identification of the appellant by the complainant at the identification parade. Now it is elementary, of course, that a witness cannot corroborate his own testimony and that independent evidence is required to constitute corroboration. There was no such independent evidence in this case. In my view, it might well have been unsafe to convict on such evidence in a case where the complainant had been a person of completely sane mind. It was very much more unsaf