JUDGMENT

Ong Hock Thye FJ:

The appellant was convicted in the High Court at Ipoh of rape and sentenced under s. 376 of the Penal Code to five years imprisonment and six strokes of the rattan. An application, made immediately after such conviction, for bail pending appeal was rejected by the trial Judge, whereupon such application was renewed before this Court during vacation, upon a certificate of urgency signed by defence Counsel.

Having perused the record it was decided that this Court should deal immediately with the application for bail as a hearing of the appeal itself. As a result, the conviction was quashed and the sentence set aside. We now give the grounds of our decision.

A Chinese female rubber tapper, 17 years old, had alleged that she was raped by the appellant in a rubber estate while she was cycling home to Hamiltonia Estate from the village of Langkap in Lower Perak, at about 6 p.m. on 11 February 1966. He had overtaken her earlier on the road in his motor-car before she reached Palawan New Village and had accosted her. About a half-mile beyond this village she saw the appellant again ahead of her, now on a bicycle. She overtook him, and when she came to a bridge