Spenser Wilkinson J:

The appellants were jointly charged first with assisting in the carrying on of 100 number lottery and secondly with assisting in the carrying on of 1,000 number lottery at the same time and place, both charges being laid under s. 4 (1)(c) of the Common Gaming Houses Ordinance No. 26 of 1953.

Mr. Lee Thean Chu on behalf of the appellants sought to rely upon the recent decision in the case of Wong Yiap Long v. PP [1955] MLJ 132 and argued that as in the present case the Police had not strictly proved that their entry into the premises had been carried out in accordance with the provisions of the Ordinance the presumption under s. 11 did not arise.

The report of Wong Yiap Long's [1955] MLJ 132 case is very scanty; no authorities appear to have been cited; the facts are not fully set out; nor is it clear whether in that case any of the presumptions under the Betting Ordinance, 1953 were relied upon, and if so, which. Mr. Lee Thean Chu relied upon this case as authority for the general proposition that before any presumption in the Common Gaming Houses Ordinance can be raised it is necessary to prove strictly that the entry by the Police was lawful.

I am unable to agree with this contention and I do not think that the learned Judge who decided Wong Yiap Long's case [1955] MLJ 132 intended to lay down so wide a proposition. All the presumption sections in the Betting Ordinance except s. 8 contain a reference to "a place entered under this Ordinance", and there is no doubt on the authorities that where a section provides for a presumption in respect of such a place then, unless the place was entered in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Ordinance, the presumption does not arise. Similar considerations apply to the presumptions provided for in ss. 19 and 20 of the Common Gaming Houses Ordinance, which refer to places entered under the Ordinance. See Loh Wah v. PP 7 FMSLR 197.

In my opinion, however, Lob Wah's case 7 FMSLR 197 does not affect the construction of s. 11 of the Common Gaming Houses Ordinance, which refers neither to a place nor to any entry and provides simply that a person found in possession of certain documents shall be presumed until the contrary is proved to be assisting in a public lottery then in progress. It is the possession, irrespective, of place, which raise the presumption under this section.

It is settled law that when an accused person is before a Court the Court has jurisdiction to try him notwithstanding the fact that his arrest may have been illegal, and it has recently been held by the Privy Council that the fact that evidence has been illegally obtained does not affect the question of its admissibility (Kuruma v. Queen [1955] AC 197). Even, therefore, if the evidence of possession by these appellants of the documents in question in this case was illegally obtained (and there was really no suggestion that it was) that would not affect its admissibility. I was of opinion, therefore, that the decision in the case of Wong Yiap Long v. PP [1955] MLJ 132 had no bearing upon the presumption raised by s. 11 of the Common Gaming Houses Ordinance and that a presumption arises under this section as soon as it is proved that a person has been found in possession of the documents therein referred to, no matter where or how that person was found.

Mr. Lee Thean Chu next referred to a recent decision of Thomson J in Ipoh (PP v. Woo Fong [1955] MLJ 235) which has not, yet been reported in any law reports but has appeared in the press, in which he held that where an operation, such as a character lottery, is conducted by a single person or a group of persons in relation to a single specific sweepstake chen the whole operation constitutes a single lottery. The remarks of the learned Judge as reported express so closely my own views on the subject that I had no hesitation in adopting them and in holding that in this case there should have been one charge and not two. I there