Chan Yok Tuang v Public Prosecutor

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Chan Sek Keong CJ
• Judgment Date: 20 August 2008
• Neutral Citation: [2008] SGHC 137
• Docket Number: Magistrate's Appeal No 69 of 2008
• Date: 20 August 2008
• Published date: 21 August 2008
• Year: 2008
• Plaintiff Counsel: Surian Sidambaram (Surian & Partners)
• Citation: [2008] SGHC 137
• Defendant Counsel: Francis Ng (Attorney-General's Chambers)
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Subject Matter: Criminal intimidation, insult and annoyance,Whether appropriate for court to exercise revisionary powers,Criminal Law,Whether charge defective for failing to state threatening words in original language,Charge,Elements of offence of criminal intimidation,Criminal Procedure and Sentencing,Revision of proceedings,Doubt as to what offence committed,Whether elements fulfilled on facts

20 August 2008 Judgment reserved.

Chan Sek Keong CJ:

The parties

1 This is an appeal by Chan Yok Tuang (“the Appellant”) against the sentence of three months’ imprisonment imposed by the judge (“the District Judge”) in District Arrest Case No 39165 of 2007.

2 The Appellant had pleaded guilty to one charge of committing criminal intimidation by threatening to cause injury to the reputation of one Senior Staff Sergeant Jessie Lim Geok Hwee (“SSSgt Lim”) by uttering “I will shoot her to death” in Hokkien at her, with the intent of causing her alarm (“the Charge”). The offence of criminal intimidation is punishable under s 506 of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 1985 Rev Ed) as follows:

Punishment for criminal intimidation. If threat is to cause death or grievous hurt, etc.

506. Whoever commits the offence of criminal intimidation shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 2 years, or with fine, or with both; and if the threat is to cause death or grievous hurt, or to cause the destruction of any property by fire, or to cause an offence punishable with death or with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 7 years or more, or impute unchastity to a woman, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 10 years, or with fine, or with both.

Facts of the case

3 The facts are as follows. The Appellant is a 48-year-old caretaker of a hotel located at Lorong 18 Geylang. On 16 May 2007, SSSgt Lim and a party of police officers were performing their routine anti-crime rounds at Lorong 16 and Lorong 18 Geylang when the Appellant spotted them and began creating a scene. According to the agreed statement of facts (“SOF”):

3 ASP Mark Koh [(“ASP Koh”)], who was with SSSgt Lim at the time, performed a record check using the [Appellant’s] particulars and discovered that he had secret society records. Using the powers conferred upon him by virtue of Section 44(2) of the Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Act (Cap. 67), ASP Koh detained the [Appellant]. Shortly thereafter, the [Appellant] was brought back to the Police Cantonment Complex lockup by ASP Koh and SSSgt Lim.

4 Whilst at the lockup, the [Appellant] was observed to be glaring aggressively at SSSgt Lim. When ASP Koh asked him why he was behaving in this manner, the [Appellant] snapped in Hokkien, “I will shoot her to death”, whilst glaring at the victim. Although the [Appellant] meant that he intended to file an adverse complaint against SSSgt Lim, SSSgt Lim understood him to be making a threat against her life. This was uttered in the presence and hearing of SSSgt Lim, ASP Koh, and one other police officer.

5 Following this, ASP Koh ascertained from the [Appellant] that he had uttered the aforementioned statement as he bore a grudge against SSSgt Lim, whom he perceived to have adversely affected his business due to her regular patrols in Lorong 16 and 18 Geylang.

4 The Appellant’s real intention in uttering those Hokkien words was accepted by the Prosecution and it was so stated in the SOF, which was agreed to by the Appellant without qualification.

The District Judge’s decision

5 The Charge read:

You,

…

are charged that you on 16 May 07, at the Central Police Division lockup, Singapore, did commit criminal intimidation by threatening to cause injury to the reputation of SSSgt Jessie Lim Geok Hwee; to wit, by uttering “I will shoot her to death” in Hokkien at her, with intent to cause alarm to the said SSSgt Jessie Lim Geok Hwee, and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 506 of the Penal Code (Cap. 224).

The Appellant pleaded guilty to the Charge and also admitted to the SOF without qualification. The District Judge accepted his plea and sentenced him to three months’ imprisonment (see PP v Chan Yok Tuang [2008] SGDC 100 (“the GD”)).

6 In imposing the sentence of three months’ imprisonment, the District Judge took into account the following aggravating factors:

(a) that the offence of criminal intimidation was by nature a serious one (at [5] of the GD);

(b) that the words of threat were directed at a public servant and not just any ordinary person on the street, and were not uttered “in the heat of the moment” (at [6] and [9] of the GD);

(c) that the offence was committed in a police station in front of three police officers, and was an “audacious act” which suggested a “contemptuous disregard for lawful authorities” (at [8] of the GD); and

(d) that the Appellant was convicted in 1988 of using criminal force to deter a public servant from discharging his duty, an offence which was of a similar character to the present offence, but that in view of its “vintage”, the antecedent should be given “substantially lesser” weight (at [10] of the GD).

7 Being dissatisfied with the District Judge’s decision, the Appellant appealed against the sentence.

Proceedings on appeal

8 Counsel for the Appellant argued that the sentence was manifestly excessive for the following reasons:

(a) The District Judge had placed undue emphasis on the fact that the words were uttered at a police officer.

(b) The District Judge did not take into consideration the intention of the Appellant nor did he consider the circumstances under which the words were uttered.

(c) The District Judge did not address his mind to the fact that the Charge averred that the threat was intended to injure the reputation of SSSgt Lim and not to cause bodily injury.

(d) The District Judge did not direct his mind to the fact that the Appellant had not intended any violence against SSSgt Lim but had only intended to make an adverse complaint against her.

9 The Deputy Public Prosecutor (“DPP”), on his part, defended the District Judge’s sentence on the following grounds:

(a) The effect of the threat on a victim is a relevant consideration in sentencing. Since it was reasonable for SSSgt Lim to form the impression that the Appellant was, by his words, making a threat to her life, the District Judge did not err in treating this as an aggravating factor.

(b) The District Judge correctly considered the victim’s status as a police officer as an aggravating factor.

(c) The location of the offence (ie, a police station) was an aggravating factor the District Judge rightly took cognisance of.

(d) The District Judge did not err in taking into account the Appellant’s 20-year-old antecedent as it was relevant to sentencing and the District Judge recognised that the weight to be attached to this previous antecedent would be “substantially lesser”.

(e) The District Judge had been conscious of the Appellant’s plea of guilt but the weight to be attached to this mitigating factor was reduced because the Appellant was caught red-handed.

(f) The threat was not uttered “in the heat of the moment” given the delay of several hours between the arrest and the commission of the offence.

(g) The fact that no weapon was used and that no physical injury was threatened could not be considered a mitigating factor.

Observations on the District Judge’s decision on sentence

10 In my view, the District Judge had erred in several respects in his consideration of the relevant sentencing factors. First, even if the offence of criminal intimidation were a serious offence, it cannot be an aggravating factor because that was the very offence that the Appellant had been convicted of. Secondly, it is also unhelpful to describe the offence as a serious offence since it covers various kinds of proscribed acts which vary in degree of gravity and some of which cannot be said to be serious. Such a blunderbuss approach clouds the mind on what is really serious and what is not that serious. Every offence, in a sense, is serious, but that is not the criterion for imposing punishments on offenders. Thirdly, the SOF does not show that the Appellant had a contemptuous disregard for public authority. The SOF shows that the Appellant had merely intended to say that he wanted to file a complaint against SSSgt Lim. In the present case, the error was obvious in the light of what the Appellant had actually meant (although the evidence was rather unsatisfactory as to what he had actually said), even assuming that what he had meant was a threat to the reputation of SSSgt Lim. There was also no evidence from the other two police officers of what they had heard or what they had understood of the Appellant’s utterance. The improbability of any sensible person sitting in a police lock-up threatening, in the presence of two police officers, to shoot and kill a third police officer, should have raised a doubt in the mind of the District Judge as to the intention of the Appellant in allegedly uttering the words as stated in the Charge.

Observations on the Charge, the SOF and the plea of guilt

11 This leads me to the main concern I had after reading the SOF. It was that the SOF did not show that the Appellant had committed the offence of criminal intimidation. When I questioned the DPP on the legality of the conviction, he was non-committal on the issue. It is therefore necessary for me to deal with the facts of the case as set out in the SOF and the law on what act or omission constitutes the offence of criminal intimidation under the Penal Code.

12 My first observation is that although the words spoken by the Appellant were in Hokkien, only the English translation of those words is set out in the Charge and in the SOF. In my view, the Charge should have set out the Appellant’s verbal threat in the language in which it was uttered (in this case, the Chinese characters as well as the phonetic equivalent in English of the threatening words) and an official translation of the meaning of those words in English. The alleged words should not have been rendered in English alone. The reasons for this requirement are plain. Words have to be understood to have an effect on the listener. If the listener does not understand what is said, it would be difficult to show that he or she has been intimidated or alarmed by...