-15=
20.
131
Mr.Lim: My suggestion is that the two on top called out to
someone for help.
Chief Justice.
That is so.
That is so. They saw the three children carried
away, they called to the accused who not understanding their language misunderstood their gestures and dropped them over the rail. That roughly gentlemen, is the case.
The charge I repeat, is murder. The evidence so far as
Michael Pine is concerned, is circumstantial, but it is none
the less of worth, because it is on the circumstantial evidence
that many a case such as this entirely depends.
If you are not satisfied and you have any reasonable doubt that Michael Pine was thrown, pushed, lifted, dropped over that bridge into the nullah by the accused, or that the action of the accused in doing so did not cause his death, then he is entitled to a verdict of acquittal.
If on the other hand you consider, after taking into consideration all the facts and all the evidence of this case, that it was the accused's hand that caused the death of Michael
Pine then we come down to one last matter which has to be
considered.
I have some difficulty in putting it to you because I don't yet know just where it comes into the picture. It is the factor of intoxication. A good deal has been made of it by
Counsel on both sides and neither of the Learned Counsel will
misunderstand me when I say that I don't want to use and I
don't want you to use or to think of any such current
linguistic coin as drunk or sober. There is a legal test which I shall ask you to apply and it does not take into consideration 'drunk' or 'sober', or 'slightly intoxicated'. It is a definite
- test. What do we know about this suggestion of intoxication? It only comes into the case if you have found to your satisfaction
as reasonable citizens, that the accused caused the death of
Michael Pine. If you find that you have to go a step further
and consider intoxication and at the outset I must impress this