Thomson CJ:

This appellant was tried before Smith J at Seremban on three charges of murder in contravention of s. 302 of the Penal Code. He was convicted on one of these charges and sentenced to death. He appealed against his conviction and we dismissed his appeal on 2 March 1959.

The charges arose out of three Chinese children aged ten, seven and four years being found stabbed to death in a house in Mambau New Village. It was the case for the prosecution that all three children had been killed at the same time by one and the same person who was said to be the appellant. Presumably it was on this ground that the trial Judge decided to try the three charges together, a course to which no objection was taken either at the trial or before us. In our view no injustice was caused to the appellant by this course having been taken and the fact that it was taken is not in itself fatal to the conviction (see R v. Davis [1937] 3 All ER 537). Nevertheless we would reiterate the view of Lord Hewart LCJ in the case cited that the trial together of more than one charge of murder is undesirable. That warning gains strength from what in fact happened in the present case. The jury found the verdict of guilty in respect of the first charge unanimously but in respect of the second and third charges they only found such verdicts by majorities and the trial Judge did not agree with these majority verdicts. How any reasonable jury could have been in such a state of mental confusion as clearly were some of this jury it is quite impossible to say for there is no reason to suppose that they were of any greater or less intelligence than other jurors. But although no injustice has been done in the present case the fact that such confusion did arise clearly shows that Lord Hewart's warning is very much in point in this country.

The case against the appellant consisted of a very strong body of circumstantial evidence. On the morning of 1 December 1957 the mother of the children and her eldest son had gone to work leaving the three deceased children in her house of which a room was occupied by the appellant with his wife and daughter. On the morning in question the appellant had been away from home for about three days and his wife who had remained at home had gone to work leaving her child with a neighbour. About 11 a.m. the appellant came from the direction of the house with bloodstained clothing and complained to his sister that he had been attacked. He then went to the hospital where he was found to have injuries to his throat which in the opinion of the Doctor who examined him were self-inflicted. Shortly afterwards the Police went to the house and found the dead bodies of the children. Later in the day the mother of the children returned and found that some jewellery was missing from her bag. Some time later the appellant led the Police to a spot where they found the missing jewellery.

The appellant did not deny that he had killed the children. He elected to make a statement from the dock in which he said he often had headaches and when he had headaches he was upset and did not know what he did. He did not know in particular what happened on the day the children was killed. Evidence for the defence was given by the Medical Superintendent of the Tampoi Mental Hospital where the appellant had been under observation for some time. His evidence was to the effect that in his opinion the appellant had a 'vulnerable personality', that is to say, was a person on the borderline between sanity and insanity who was subject to uncontrollable outbursts of rage. His evidence did not go so far as saying that at the time of killing the children, if he did kill them, the appellant was by reason of unsoundness of mind incapable of knowing the nature of his act or that he was doing what was either wrong or contrary to law. In effect it went no further than saying that what the appellant had done could have been done in consequence of irresistible impulse.