634 Malayan Law Journal [2016] 2 MLJ [24] We now move to ground two of the appeal. It was submitted by learned counsel that the learned trial judge had erred when His Lordship descended into the arena of conflict and cross-examined both the appellant and witness SP4, the taxi driver, regarding the appelant’s unconciousness which is relevant to the question of knowledge. By doing so, the learned trial judge was alleged to had partly usurped the role of the prosecution and had gone beyond s 165 of the Evidence Act 1950. It was submitted that this is a serious misdirection of the learned trial judge. [25] Section 165 of the Evidence Act 1950 provides: The Judge may, in order to discover or to obtain proper proof of relevant facts, ask any question he pleases, in any form at any time, of any witness or of the parties, about any fact relevant or irrelevant; and may order the production of any document or thing; and neither the parties nor their agents shall be entitled to make any objection to any such question or order, nor, without the leave of the court, to cross-examine any witness upon any answer given in reply to any such question: A B C D Provided that– (i) the judgment must be based upon facts declared by this Act to be relevant and duly proved; (ii) this section shall not anthorize any Judge to compel any witness to answer any question or to produce any document which the witness would be entitled to refuse to answer or produce under sections 121 to 131 if the question were asked or the document were called for by the adverse party; nor shall the Judge ask any question which it would be improper for any other person to ask under section 148 or 149; nor shall he dispense with the primary evidence of any document, except in the cases hereinbefore excepted. E F [26] Learned counsel submitted that the nature of the questions asked by the learned trial judge was in the nature of cross-examination where the answers elicited were in the form of ‘Yes’. Thus, this line of questioning is prejudicial to the appellant. G [27] From the notes of proceedings at pp 257–258 of AR vol 3, we found series of questions put by the trial judge to the appellant. They were as follows: H Mah: You paid him with using your currency? A: Yes. Mah: Then police took you to police station, then you conscious, you know? A: The police put collected money from me I paid to the taxi driver in the police station. Mah: You are conscious? If you not conscious police took your money, open your trousers you do not know. You know police took your money and paid. You are I