at the High Court. Three years later, Neville's trial began on 12 November 1990. By this time, although he was assigned with a lawyer named G. Raman to argue his case, Neville refused to engage a lawyer and hence, chose to represent himself in the trial. It was a normal practice for defendants were appointed a defence counsel to represent them during capital court cases, but Neville's case was the first where a defendant facing a murder charge elected to represent himself without a lawyer during his trial. The case was heard by High Court judge Lai Kew Chai and Judicial commissioner (JC) Tan Teow Yeow, and the trial prosecutor was Lee Sing Lit. Prosecution's first arguments The prosecution's case, based on Neville's statements, alleged that Neville, who first met Lim in 1984 during a design course, had invited Lim to his flat at Kallang Bahru, where they had sex. According to Neville's confession, he had a quarrel with Lim afterwards, and he thus assaulted Lim and covered her mouth to suffocate her, before he threw her body out of the window. After Lim fell to her death, Neville frantically packed up his bag, passport and clothes to prepare to run off to Malaysia. Lim's 56-year-old father Lim Kok Kian (林国坚 Lín Guójiān) and mother Tan Siok Kim (陈惜琴 Chén Xīqín) both testified in court that Lim would often wear modest clothing and never behave unruly, and instead, she was an obedient girl who was always filial to her parents. New witness of case During the trial however, a surprise witness, who was never presented at the 1987 preliminary hearing, turned up in court after an adjournment to testify that he had directly witnessed Neville murdering Lim on that night itself. Nizammuddean bin Rasul, a 22-year-old Malay Singaporean and cleaning supervisor, stated that six years ago, he was going out at night after leaving his friend's flat from nearby, and that was when he saw Neville holding a huge object looking like a pillow, and it later recognized it as the half-naked body of a woman, which Neville violently threw outside the flat window and leave the woman fall to her death. Nizammuddean stated that he was shocked to see Lim falling to her death. He stated that when he approached the girl's limp body, Lim, in her dying breath, suddenly grabbed Nizammuddean's hand and pleaded to the then 15-year-old