Ong Hock Thye FJ:

The appellant was convicted in the High Court at Ipoh of rape and sentenced under s. 376 of the Penal Code to five years imprisonment and six strokes of the rattan. An application, made immediately after such conviction, for bail pending appeal was rejected by the trial Judge, whereupon such application was renewed before this Court during vacation, upon a certificate of urgency signed by defence Counsel.

Having perused the record it was decided that this Court should deal immediately with the application for bail as a hearing of the appeal itself. As a result, the conviction was quashed and the sentence set aside. We now give the grounds of our decision.

A Chinese female rubber tapper, 17 years old, had alleged that she was raped by the appellant in a rubber estate while she was cycling home to Hamiltonia Estate from the village of Langkap in Lower Perak, at about 6 p.m. on 11 February 1966. He had overtaken her earlier on the road in his motor-car before she reached Palawan New Village and had accosted her. About a half-mile beyond this village she saw the appellant again ahead of her, now on a bicycle. She overtook him, and when she came to a bridge over a stream, he caught up with her, knocked or pushed her off her machine, threatened her with death if she called for help and throttled her into unconsciousness. On coming to, she found herself alone in a rubber estate a short distance from the bridge. She felt pain in her private parts, saw blood on her thighs and her clothing was in disarray. She recovered and put on her underpants, found her bicycle on the ground where she had left it and washed the blood off her thighs in the stream. On reaching home - where she lived with only a younger sister of 15 years for company - she found visitors but explained to them that she had had a fall. After a bath, she retired to bed without supper and after the departure of the visitors told her sister of the rape.

Next morning the two girls went to look for their elder brother in Teluk Anson; failing to find him, they proceeded to Sungei Siput North to see their mother, arriving there late in the day: it was 12 February. The elder girl told her mother nothing of what was alleged to have happened to her, neither that evening, nor on the two days that followed, until the evening of 14. The younger sister, however, stated that, while she had disclosed nothing either to their mother on 12, she did on the next morning tell her of the rape. Strangely enough, it is on record that the mother said in evidence that the elder girl only complained of a sore throat on the night of 12 as the reason for her weeping; that at no time after 13 did she question her elder daughter, nor did the latter confirm or deny the story of the younger girl until she herself made the complaint to her mother on the night of 14.

On 13 February, the mother took the complainant to Dr Fakir Chand in Ipoh, told him that the latter had been raped and requested prophylactic treatment. The doctor advised the mother to take the girl to the hospital for examination. He saw no discharge or swelling in the girl's private parts; he noticed no impediment in her speech: in his own words, "I had no difficulty in understanding the complainant and the mother through the interpreter . . . No complaint about any pain in the neck or throat."

On 14 or 15 they both went again to Ipoh and consulted Dr Ng Mann Loke, to whom Dr Fakir Chand was assistant, with the same story. He made a visual examination but saw no discharge or signs of injury to her private parts or thighs. Neither of them complained of any pain or injury to the girl's neck or throat. He managed to persuade them to go to hospital. They accordingly proceeded to the General Hospital, Ipoh, where they were told to make a report first. At the New Town Police Station the report was taken down in writing at 12.45 p.m. on 15 February. The complainant's narrative is important for reasons which will appe