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incident described in the evidence of Sub-Inspector
O'Donovan it can, I think, be safely assumed that this
basket was in fact the property of accused.
18.
in that basket were found three letters on
which the Crown properly relied as evidence of motive. It
was no part of the case for the Crown that the letters or
any of them were written by the accused, but they maintained,
and were entitled to maintain, that the fact that the
accused had kept one at least of the letters for six months, and thought them of sufficient importance to include them among the effects he was going to take with him to Singapore, indicated that he attached importance to the sentiments they
contained. These are the letters mentioned in paragraph
4 of this report and copies are attached hereto,
19.
Un the issue of intoxication the evidence is
woefully scanty consisting as it does of the testimony
of Dr. Valentine and Mr. Branson, of the ambulance boy Lo Fong, and of the accused's statements first to the Police
and later on his trial before me.
20.
I charged the jury at length on the defence of intoxication on a charge of murder, following the principles laid down by the Lord Chancellor in his judgment in the case of Rex V. Beard (1919) 14 Criminal Appeal Reports p.110 and pointing out that as the law presumes that every unlawful homicide is murder it is for the accused to satisfy the jury that he was so intoxicated as to reduce the offence from murder to manslaughter.
21.
The jury, after an absence of over an hour, returned to Court and asked me again to explain the legal
principles underlying the defence of intoxication and i
endeavoured to do so.
Finally, at 6.35 p.m., they returned