[2011] 7 MLJ A B C D E F G H I Public Prosecutor v Muhammad Rasid bin Hashim (Abang Iskandar J) 861 given to him. In other jurisdictions, a false statement made by an accused person concerning the surrounding circumstances in which an offence was committed whilst he had an opportunity to commit the offence can be regarded as corroboration of the evidence against him: Eade v The King (1924) 34 CLR 154 and also R v Lucas (Ruth) [1981] 3 WLR 120. ‘We accept the decisions in these cases to be good law. In this case we hold that the representation he made to PW4 regarding the purpose of borrowing the car was a deliberate lie and is therefore a corroborative evidence against him for which he must explain. Such lie is a reflection of his consciousness of guilt as regards the use he intended to make of the car in question. Reverting back to this case before me, the only reasonable inference must be that it was the accused who had caused those replies to SP4’s SMSes, as red herrings, to falsely assuage SP4’s concerns about the deceased’s whereabouts at that time. So, these had been lies, deliberately perpetrated by the accused and were corroborative of his guilty mind in the commission of the offences as per the charges preferred against him. [23] As could be recalled, Siti Zawiah was sent to the Selayang Hospital and that she had died shortly after arrival there. An autopsy was performed on her body by the pathologist, Dr Mohd Shah bin Mahmood (‘SP5’). According to his evidence before this court, the deceased had suffered multiple injuries. One such injury had been the one he saw and examined at the forehead of the deceased. The photographs marked as P6(E) and P6(H) would show the said injury. This injury according to SP5 had most likely caused the death of the deceased as it had affected the membrane underneath the brain. The injury was caused by a hard blunt object with a flat surface and a sharp edge and he concluded it could have been caused by a hard hit by using an object such as an electric iron, and he had opined that P10B (the electric iron) could have caused such injury suffered by the deceased on the forehead. Now, looking at the analysis of the specimen marked as ‘E6B’ (swab of sweat) taken from the broken handle of the P10B by SP7 (the CSI lead officer), the chemist (‘SP8’) had found that the mixed DNA profile developed therefrom had been contributed by the accused and the deceased. So, the inevitable, yet reasonable, inference to be derived from this circumstance must be that both the accused and the deceased must have grappled on the electric iron by its handle (P10B) and the deceased must have tried to resist the accused’s attempt to use it to hit her, but to no avail. The accused had therefore successfully inflicted on the deceased, the fatal injury to the forehead. Based on the evaluation of these evidence, I had so found such to be the factual circumstance pertaining to the P10B and the fatal injury on the deceased’s forehead. [24] The SP5 also was of the considered view that the death could have been caused by the break of the hyoid bone inside the neck area and this could have been caused by strong force having been applied there such as strangulation of

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