Rigby J:

This was an appeal by the learned Deputy Public Prosecutor from a decision of the learned President of the Sessions Court, sitting at George Town, Penang, acquitting the respondent on the charge preferred against him of dishonestly retaining property knowing or having reason to believe it had been stolen, contrary to the provisions of s. 411 of the Penal Code.

The facts of the case were simple and straightforward. On the morning of the 31 January 1960 the occupant of a house at Tanjong Tokong woke up and found that his house had been broken into either during the early hours of that morning or during the previous night. Amongst the property stolen was his wrist watch. I will hereafter refer to him as the complainant.

On the morning of the 26 May 1960, a Police party, acting on information received from an informer, lay in wait for and detained the respondent as he was cycling along a public road. He was wearing a wrist watch, which was subsequently conclusively identified as the property of the complainant and as the watch stolen from his premises during the course of the housebreaking on the night of the 30 January or the early hours of the following morning.

The respondent is a student, aged 19, and lives at home with his family. He is also the next door neighbour of the complainant. He was duly charged and prosecuted. At his trial he gave evidence that he had purchased the watch from a friend named Ah Sek for the sum of $20 about three months previously. He said that he had asked Ah Sek for a receipt but that Ah Sek had said that it was not necessary. During the period between his release on bail and the date of his trial - a period of 13 days - he had looked for his friend Ah Sek, but without success. He further said that at the time he was arrested he then informed the Police that he had purchased the watch from Ah Sek, and that they had accompanied him to Ah Sek's house, but they were unable to find him. The respondent was represented by Counsel at his trial, but there was no cross-examination of the Police Officers by Counsel to establish whether or not this allegation was true. The respondent said that he had borrowed money to buy the watch from his sister. The respondent's sister, for what her evidence was worth, corroborated this evidence. The learned President acquitted the respondent.

The learned Deputy Public Prosecutor's sole ground of appeal is that the learned President misdirected himself in law, and as a direct result of that misdirection he placed too high a value on the story told by the respondent, and the manner with which he told it in the witness box, without giving adequate and proper consideration to the intrinsic worth of that story and its degree of probability of truth in relation to the facts established by the prosecution. In support of that contention he relied upon the operative part of the learned President's grounds of decision which, after reciting the evidence adduced before him, commences with the sentence:-

After hearing the defence story I came to the conclusion that it could possibly be true.

Now, the Federation Court of Appeal, in the case of PP v. Soong Chak Sung, [1955] MLJ 144 following an earlier authority of its own Court based upon the English case of Rex v. Aves, [1950] 2 All ER 330 laid down quite clearly that in cases of knowingly receiving stolen property it is not sufficient for the accused to put forward some story, in explanation as to how he came to be in innocent possession of the stolen property, which the Court thinks may possibly be true. If the mere possibility as to its truth was a sufficient ground, in itself, to warrant the acquittal of the accused, then any plausible story which he might choose to fabricate to account for his possession of the stolen property would be such as to justify his acquittal. In order to warrant such an acquittal the defence put forward must be a story which leaves the Court - whether it be a trial by a Judge or Ma