[2016] 2 MLJ A Abuchi Ngwoke v Public Prosecutor (Kamardin Hashim JCA) 637 Mah: Itu dalam kereta ada 2 orang polis dan berhenti di air terjun itu? SP4: Ya. Mah: So polis dalam kereta peronda yang keluar di atas sana atau polis lain datang tanya? B SP4: Yang berada dalam kereta peronda itu. Salah seorang keluar daripada polis yang datang dalam kereta peronda itu. Mah: Kamu kenal itu polis yang datang tanya dengan kamu? Kamu boleh camkan dia? C D E F G H I SP4: Tak boleh camkan. [29] By looking at the notes of proceedings above, we agree with learned counsel’s contention that the trial judge had descended into the arena of dispute regarding an element of knowledge of the impugned drugs in the 29 capsules swallowed by the appellant. The appellant’s defence was that he swallowed precious stones contained in the 29 capsules. We found that the trial judge had fallen into error in descending into the arena of dispute thereby allowing his judgment of the facts to be clouded by the results of his cross-examination. We agree that the trial judge had exceeded the desirable limits of judicial intervention in the examination and cross-examination of the appellant and SP4 notwithstanding the wide ambit of s 165 of the Evidence Act 1950. [30] We found support in our conclusion from the decision of Edgar Joseph Jr SCJ in Teng Boon How v Pendakwa Raya [1993] 3 MLJ 553 at pp 563–564, where His Lordship had said: … the desirable limits of judicial intervention in the examination and cross-examination of witnesses enunciated in Yuill v Yuill (1945) P 15 and Jones v National Coal Board [1957] 2 QB 55 would apply in this country. These limits apply with double force in the case of interrogation by a judge of an accused person since, in our view, the nature of examination contemplated by s 165 of the Evidence Act 1950 is not examination or cross-examination of an inquisitorial nature for the purpose of entrapping an accused, or of extracting from him damaging admissions, upon which to build up a case against him or to supply a gap in the evidence for the prosecution. Especially is this so, in the case of an accused facing a capital charge. We must, therefore, treat the failure of a trial judge sitting alone, to direct himself correctly in accordance with these principles, in the same way as a failure to direct a jury correctly. [31] We observed that the judgment of the learned trial judge on the issue of knowledge was partly clouded as a result of his cross-examination of the appellant and SP4, the taxi driver. The extracts from His Lordship’s judgment clearly show that the learned trial judge had relied on the results of his cross-examination in convicting the appellant (at pp 31–33 AR Vol 1):