JUDGMENT

Lord Fraser of Tullybelton (delivering the judgement of the Board):

This is an appeal from the Federal Court of Malaysia which allowed an appeal from the judgment of the High Court in Malaya (Abdul Hamid J). It concerns a dispute as to who is entitled to a sum of $60,384.80. According to the appellants, the money was put in trust by a dying man as a provision for his widow and has been properly paid over to her; according to the respondent, it was obtained fraudulently from an unmarried man, when he was mentally incapable of understanding what he was doing, and ought now to be restored to his estate. Two main issues are raised. The first is whether the money was validly transferred by the late Loke Yaik Hoe ("the deceased") into a joint account in names of himself and the first appellant at the Pasar Road branch of the second appellants' bank, or whether the cheque purporting to make the transfer was invalid on one of the several grounds alleged by the respondent. This is a question of fact, the answer to which depends on the mental capacity of the deceased at the material time. The second question is whether, if such transfer was validly made, an effective trust was set u