Rigby CJ:

Sometime between 9.45-10.00 on the evening of 22 August 1969, the plaintiff Hassan bin Abdul Gani, was driving his Morris 1000 private saloon car along the Jalan Tutong Road from the direction of Brunei Town and going in the direction of Tutong. Sitting in the front seat with him was his 20 year old brother-in-law, the second plaintiff, and sitting alone in the back seat was his four year old son, the third plaintiff. They were all returning home from the cinema. They lived at Mile eight on the Jalan Tutong Road. It was a fine night; the traffic was light and the plaintiff was travelling about 35 miles per hour. On approaching mile seven, the plaintiff saw two cars coming towards him, one behind the other and with dipped headlights. The cars passed each other. Shortly afterwards, the plaintiff saw another car come towards him with its headlights on and undipped. The car appeared to be zig-zagging. The plaintiff, although at the time driving on his nearside of the road, attempted to pull even further over on his nearside. The approaching car struck the front off-side of the plaintiff's car and the plaintiff knew no more until he awakened in hospital several hours later.

The police arrived at the scene shortly after the incident. They found the plaintiff's car lying in the ditch several feet off the road and facing in the opposite direction to which it had been travelling at the time of the accident i.e. facing towards Brunei. The bonnet was practically ripped off the engine was buckled, the front bumper was dislodged, and the offside headlamp was off. The car was in fact a write-off.

The large Hillman saloon car which the defendant had admittedly been driving was facing diagonally across the road, on the opposite side of the road, its rear wheels resting on the grass verge and the badly damaged front part of the car was facing obliquely in the opposite direction from which the car had come i.e. facing towards Tutong. The distance between the two cars at their nearest point was about 35 feet five inches.

Police Inspector Haji Mohammad Salleh bin Haji Hassan, who arrived at the scene that same evening shortly after the accident had occurred, made a plan of the scene and took measurements. The plan is in evidence before me. Eleven photographs taken of the scene and showing the relevant position of the two cars immediately after the accident were also before me. The width of the road at the scene of the accident was 32 feet two inches; a perfectly straight level road at that place.

The off-side front tyre of the Hillman car was deflated. In about the centre of the road the inspector found some short scratch marks cutting into the surface of the road. The police inspector, who gave his evidence extremely well, said that as a result of his inspection he was of the opinion that some hard metal part underneath the chassis of the Hillman must have come into contact with, and caused the small fresh scratches he found on the surface of, the road. He further found a tyre mark starting on the off-side of the white line running along the centre of the road. That tyre mark was on the off-side of the road facing Brunei. As a result of his inspection, and having regard to the position of the Hillman car, the inspector was of the opinion that the tyre mark was caused by the off-side tyre of the Hillman car.

The defendant, a young man aged 23 gave evidence. He had spent the day down at a family party at Seria where he had gone with other members of the family to say farewell to a relative who was leaving Brunei to study overseas. At the time of the accident he was driving back to Brunei Town and following a car driven by his uncle. The car which he himself was driving contained six other occupants; his mother, who was sitting in the front seat beside him, and his brother and four sisters who were sitting in the back seat. His own version of the accident was that as he was driving along the road a car came round a right-han