1. ) Mohd Syaiful Afis Bin Abd Wahab 2. ) Nurayuni Binti Mohd Nor v Pendakwa Raya

Case Significance

Illustrates that a charge insufficiently particularised as to the time and place of the offence under section 153(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code, together with a failure to carry out the maximum evaluation of the evidence under section 182A(1), can vitiate a conviction.

This High Court decision in Kelantan concerns a criminal appeal against conviction and sentence for an offence relating to a child, and turns on a defective charge and a failure of the trial court to evaluate the evidence properly. The appellants had been convicted in the Sessions Court and sentenced to five years' imprisonment under section 31(1)(a) of the Child Act 2001, and they appealed to the High Court. Two principal grounds were advanced. The first was that the charge was defective for failing to comply with section 153(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code, which requires a charge to state the time and place of the act constituting the offence, because the charge specified only a period from September to November 2020, which was too wide and general adequately to particularise the actus reus of the offence alleged. The second was that the Sessions Court judge had erred by relying only on the evidence of the defence case in her consideration and decision at the close of the trial, and had failed to carry out the maximum or total evaluation of both the prosecution and the defence evidence required under section 182A(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code. The court examined these grounds and found that the charge was indeed defective for want of adequate particulars of the time and place of the offence, and that the trial court had failed to conduct the total evaluation of the evidence that section 182A(1) demands, focusing on the defence evidence alone rather than weighing the whole of the evidence at the conclusion of the trial. These defects went to the safety of the conviction, and the court allowed the appeal and set aside the conviction and sentence. The judgment is a useful illustration of how a charge that is insufficiently particularised as to time and place, and a failure to carry out the maximum evaluation of the evidence, can vitiate a conviction.