Charlene, a Sarawakian, who has been charged with dangerous driving and causing the death of a sales assistant, found herself in the same situation she was in on July 1, 2003, when she was first charged.

After a trial, Charlene was sentenced to two years' jail and fined RM8,000 or three months' jail on June 6 last year.

The then magistrate, Azroul Hisham Azulan, also ordered that her licence be suspended for three years.

Charlene filed an appeal against her conviction and sentence at the Shah Alam High Court.

Yesterday, she was back to square one. She has to go through the whole trial again.

The High Court transferred her case to the lower court for a retrial.

Judge Datuk Su Geok Yiam, however, said she was allowing the appeal after finding the magistrate had misdirected himself on the standard of proof in relation to the prosecution and defence cases.

She set aside the decision by the magistrate and ordered Charlene's case be sent back to the magistrate's court for a retrial.

"The case must be mentioned today (yesterday) before a different magistrate."

Later, the case was mentioned before magistrate Mohd Ibrahim Mohd Gulam here.

Charlene's counsel, Edmund Bon, who was assisted by Nik Mohamed Ikhwan Nik Mahamud, applied for the case to be mentioned a month later to enable him to decide on the course of action and whether to send a representation to the Attorney-General's Chambers.

Mohd Ibrahim fixed Oct 6 for mention.

Last year, Charlene was found guilty of crashing her car into several tables placed by a restaurant on Jalan 14/14 in Section 14 here.

The accident occurred at 2.15am on May 25, 2003, while she was driving a friend home in a red Nissan Sentra. She crashed into a group of people having supper.

Nur Suhaila Tajudin, 19, died and six others were injured in the incident.