The prosecution must establish a prima facie case beyond reasonable doubt; failing this, the accused is entitled to acquittal.

[1] The appellant's appeal on conviction and sentence in relation to a charge under s 39B(1)(a) came up for hearing on 26 September 2017. We allowed the appeal principally on the ground that the learned trial judge had failed to give due weight and consideration to the defence story.

[2] In the instant case, the appellant's evidence of his incapacity on medical grounds to discredit prosecution's sole witness evidence was not debunked by the prosecution at the prosecution stage and/or at the defence stage, thereby making the conviction and sentence unsafe. In addition, the prosecution evidence through PW2 as well as chemist evidence to link the accused was in our view, weak evidence to establish a prima facie case more so when the arrest was as a result of prior information by an informer. Further, the chemist report in respect of DNA was not conclusive to implicate the appellant.

[3] It must be emphasized here again and again that the hallmark in writing judgment in criminal case substantially requires the trial judge to weigh the case of the defence even though at the most it will only stand as a story without supporting evidence. The story has to be contrasted with the version of the prosecution and their witnesses, and whenever possible, the court is obliged to take the most favourable evidence or contradiction which will corroborate or support the defence story and decide whether a conviction or acquittal ought to be granted. The threshold in criminal cases to accept the defence story generally is low and only in cases where presumption or it's like, the story of the defence must be able to create a reasonable doubt in the mind of the trial judge. To create a reasonable doubt, the court has gone to the extent of saying a plausible explanation by the accused is sufficient. That is to say, there are two standard of proof to weigh the defence story. Generally for Penal Code offences, creating a doubt in the mind of the judge is sufficient, whereas for drug offences, etc. the standard of proof rests on achieving the requirement of what we call as reasonable doubt. Support for the proposition is found in a number of cases. To name a few are as follows:

(i) Sharma J guidelines in Public Prosecutor v. Saimin & Ors, [1971] 2 MLJ 16, is one trial courts just not ought to be familiar with but must demonstrate in their judgments their ability to apply to the facts of the case and deliver a conscionable judgment. His Lordship in that case had asserted:

"The following principles are not only sound but well recognised in practice:-

(1) The onus of proving everything essential to the establishment of the charge against the accused lies on the prosecution;

(2) The evidence must be such as to exclude to a moral certainty every reasonable doubt of the guilt of the accused;

(3) In matters of doubt it is safer to acquit than to condemn."

(ii) In Public Prosecutor v. Noor Azman Abidin , , the court of Appeal considered the case of Public Prosecutor v. Saimin & Ors, [1971] 2 MLJ 16 and had this to say:

"The hallmark of judgment writing in criminal case is achieved only when there has been a just and fair assessment of the defence story as long as it is not inherently incredible taking into consideration that it is for the prosecution to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt at the prosecution case as well as the defence stage, notwithstanding the fact where the law may require the defence to rebut the charge on balance of probabilities. Lack of proper assessment will in actual fact compromise the integrity of the decision making process, making the conv