Tan Ah Tah CJ:

In giving the judgment of the Court dismissing the appeal, referred to the facts and grounds of appeal which do not call for report, and continued: A further ground of appeal on which the appellant relied concerns the publication during the trial of an article under the heading "`Expert' Picks Wrong Bullet" in an English daily newspaper published and sold in Singapore. It is contended that the article was highly prejudicial to the defence and that the trial Judge should have dismissed the jury and ordered a fresh trial. The manner in which the learned trial Judge dealt with this matter may be seen from the following passage from his summing-up:

I now turn to deal with the evidence of Sgt Adams. Before I do so there is one comment that I want to make: you will remember, members of the Jury, the experiment or test which was conducted on Friday morning before you, when Sgt Adams was asked to leave the Court; how the tapes were unwound from three of the four cartridge cases that were found in the accused's gun. The fourth, you will recall, had no tape at all. How they were all placed in the chamber of the revolver with only the backs of the cases open to view. It was a pity perhaps that the one Sgt Adams picked out on Thursday was not specifically marked so that there could have been no doubt about it. The Sergeant at any rate maintained that the one he picked out on Thursday was the same one he picked out at the test on Friday. It was a case perhaps of the trap being sprung before it was properly laid. But at any rate, members of the Jury, the matter appears to me to be open to doubt and I am satisfied that the fair and proper course to adopt is to accept the Sergeant's evidence on the point, that the one he picked out on the Thursday was the same one that he picked out on Friday. I am sure you will agree with me in the circumstances that is the right and proper course to adopt. You must completely ignore anything that you may have read

in the newspapers to the contrary. For it is you, and you alone, who are the Judges of fact in this case. You are only to be governed by the evidence which has been given in this Court. I hope that is perfectly clear.

The first observation to be made on this matter is that the article concerned the expert witness Sergeant Adams and not the appellant himself. Secondly, there is no certainty that any of the jurors had read the article. Adopting the words used in the judgment of the English Court of Criminal Appeal in Regina v. Armstrong 35 Cr App R 72 at p. 75 we are of opinion that the fact that the article was published "is no ground for this Court to infer either that the jurors who tried the case had read it or that, if they had read it, they were unfit to try the case or biassed against the prisoner for the purpose of the trial." If in fact any juror had read the article we are of the view that the learned trial Judge's direction to the jury as to the right and proper course which they should adopt and his further direction that they must completely ignore anything that they might have read in the newspapers and that they were only to be governed by the evidence which had been given in Court were adequate in the circumstances of this case. A more detailed reference to the article would only have meant revealing its contents to members of the jury who might not have read it. This ground of appeal therefore fails. Before leaving this subject we think it necessary to draw the attention of all concerned to the publication in newspapers of comments on proceedings in criminal prosecutions. It is a contempt of Court to publish an article in a newspaper commenting on the proceedings in a criminal case while the trial is in progress. The publication of such an article may well result in the institution of proceedings for contempt of Court and the imposition of severe penalties on the offender or offenders.

There are other grounds of appeal on which the appellant relied. In ou