Chua Siew Lin v Public Prosecutor

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Yong Pung How CJ
• Judgment Date: 10 September 2004
• Neutral Citation: [2004] SGHC 203
• Docket Number: Magistrate's Appeal No 61 of 2004
• Date: 10 September 2004
• Published date: 15 September 2004
• Year: 2004
• Plaintiff Counsel: Subhas Anandan (Harry Elias Partnership)
• Citation: [2004] SGHC 203
• Defendant Counsel: Low Cheong Yeow (Deputy Public Prosecutor)
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Subject Matter: Evidence,Whether purportedly light-hearted words used under intimidating circumstances amounting to threat,Maid abuse consisting of voluntarily causing hurt and criminal intimidation,Section 506 Penal Code (Cap 224, 1985 Rev Ed),Whether inordinate delay in charging and prosecuting appellant valid mitigating factor,Sentencing,Whether error affecting sentence or determination of guilt,Section 116 illus (g) Evidence Act (Cap 97, 1997 Rev Ed),Jurisdiction of High Court to maintain or set aside sentence,Appeals,Charge,Inferences,Mitigation,Interpretation,Charge framed under first limb of s 506 Penal Code (Cap 224, 1985 Rev Ed),Criminal Procedure and Sentencing,Section 261 Criminal Procedure Code (Cap 68, 1985 Rev Ed),Whether sentence manifestly excessive,Whether failure of Prosecution to produce DNA analysis raised inference that DNA analysis unfavourable to Prosecution,Criminal intimidation,Offences,Criminal Law,Trial judge convicted appellant on second limb of s 506 Penal Code

10 September 2004

Yong Pung How CJ:

1 The appellant was convicted on one charge of voluntarily causing hurt under s 324 read with s 73(2) of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 1985 Rev Ed) (“PC”), one charge of criminal intimidation under the second limb of s 506 of the PC and one charge of voluntarily causing hurt under s 323 of the PC. All three charges arose from a single incident of maid abuse that occurred on the evening of 1 November 2001. The appellant was sentenced to a total of four months and two weeks’ imprisonment. She appealed against both conviction and sentence. At the trial, counsel for the appellant sought to address me specifically on the issue of sentence. However, I have, in the interest of completeness, dealt with both the appeals on conviction and sentence. Accordingly, I dismissed the appeal on conviction but allowed the appeal on sentence in part. I now give my reasons.

The facts

2 At the material time, the appellant, a widow, lived at No 36 Carrisbrooke Grove with her three young children aged six years, four years and three months. From 12 February 2001 to 2 November 2001, the appellant had employed the victim, Nur Akbariyah (“Nur”), as a domestic maid.

3 On the evening of 1 November 2001, the appellant had allegedly threatened and assaulted Nur at the appellant’s residence, thereby giving rise to the three charges above.

The Prosecution’s case

4 The Prosecution relies primarily on Nur’s testimony. At or around 6.40pm on 1 November 2001, the appellant and Nur were in the kitchen of the appellant’s residence. The appellant was apparently unhappy with Nur because she had neglected to prepare dinner for the children.

5 At this time, the appellant was cooking porridge while nagging Nur. She had repeatedly asked Nur whether Nur “knew what she [the appellant] was doing”. As Nur had noticed that the appellant had prepared carrots and cabbage, and was in the process of cutting potatoes, she replied that the appellant was making soup. This served to further anger the appellant. The appellant ordered Nur to slap herself.

6 However, even after Nur had slapped herself, the appellant remained dissatisfied and proceeded to give Nur a hard slap on the left cheek. Nur then withdrew to the area behind the kitchen where she laid on the floor and cried.

7 Shortly after, the appellant summoned Nur back to the kitchen and demanded to know why she was crying. Nur responded that she was in pain, to which the appellant pushed Nur’s head against the kitchen wall. The appellant then took the kitchen knife that she had been using earlier and placed it against Nur’s chin, at the same time asking Nur in a loud voice, “Can you wake up?” When Nur responded in the affirmative, the appellant proceeded to place the knife on Nur’s chest and stomach area while repeating the same question.

8 Finally, the appellant rested the knife on Nur’s left collarbone and repeated the question. This time, Nur felt some pain in her collarbone area.

9 When the appellant’s tirade had ended, she assumed a conciliatory attitude and persuaded Nur not to cry and to speak to the appellant as a friend. The appellant then instructed Nur to run around the kitchen and to “put on a happy face”. Nur complied with these instructions.

10 At the conclusion of the entire episode, Nur continued with her chores. It was while Nur was preparing the bath for the appellant’s baby that she noticed a small cut on her collarbone. She also noticed that her T-shirt was stained with blood from the cut.

11 At about 11.30am the next morning, Nur took the opportunity to flee from the appellant’s residence while the appellant had gone to fetch her children from kindergarten. Nur proceeded straight to Serangoon Gardens Police Post (“the police post”) and reported the previous evening’s incident. On the same day, Nur was sent for a medical examination at Tan Tock Seng Hospital. As a result, the appellant was charged with two counts of causing hurt and one count of criminal intimidation.

12 The trial against the appellant thus proceeded on the following three charges:

(a) voluntarily causing hurt to Nur by use of a knife (District Arrest Case No 3549 of 2004);

(b) criminal intimidation of Nur by placing a knife at her neck (District Arrest Case No 3550 of 2004); and

(c) voluntarily causing hurt to Nur by slapping her and pushing her head against a wall (District Arrest Case No 3551 of 2004).

The defence

13 The appellant denied all the allegations made against her. According to her testimony, on the evening of the alleged incident, Nur had informed the appellant that dinner had not yet been prepared. The appellant then went to the kitchen to prepare porridge, as her chief concern at the time was to prepare a meal for her children.

14 The appellant claimed to be merely “grumbling” as she prepared the meal. When Nur entered the kitchen, the appellant had simply asked why dinner was not yet cooked. Nur had responded by apologising repeatedly whereupon the appellant allegedly said to Nur, “Don’t apologise. You just quietly slap yourself”. The appellant then resumed cooking. Thereafter, the appellant went to breastfeed her baby while Nur fed the other children their dinner. Nothing further transpired that evening.

15 The following morning, the appellant discovered that Nur was missing only after she returned from fetching her children from kindergarten. As she was leaving her house to search for Nur, the appellant’s neighbour informed the appellant that her maid had seen Nur bleeding. The neighbour also related to the appellant that Nur had told the neighbour’s maid that she was going to report the matter to the police.

16 Upon hearing the neighbour’s account of what had occurred, the appellant called the police and was informed that Nur was indeed at the police post and that an ambulance had been called for. The appellant was then instructed to wait at home. The following morning, the police conducted a search of the appellant’s home. Nur was also present at the time and had allegedly said, “Sorry, Madam”, to the appellant.

17 The appellant denied that the threat and assault ever took place at her residence on 1 November 2001.

The decision below

18 Before commencing his evaluation of the evidence before him, the district judge referred to the decision of Choy Kok Meng v PP [2003] SGHC 150, and recognised that the court must exercise extreme caution in examining Nur’s evidence when the primary piece of evidence directly proving the Prosecution’s case came from Nur herself. After scrutinising the evidence in great detail, he concluded that Nur had been earnest and forthright in recollecting the events that transpired on 1 November 2001. While there appeared to be some inconsistencies in her evidence, the district judge ultimately found them to be inconsequential in nature, and found that it was not unusual that Nur could not recollect such details with crystal clarity. He found that Nur had no reason to lie and that her account was credible.

19 In contrast, the district judge found the appellant to be a guarded witness who had, during the course of the trial, slanted her testimony to dissociate herself from adverse evidence. He found certain aspects of the appellant’s version of the facts inherently incredible and observed that there were material discrepancies between the appellant’s testimony and her police statement. He thus held that the Prosecution had successfully impeached the appellant’s credit.

20 The district judge also noted that the Prosecution’s case was supported by the objective medical evidence of Dr Tan Bien Peng (“Dr Tan”). Dr Tan had examined Nur at Tan Tock Seng Hospital at 12.37pm on 2 November 2001 and reported the following injuries:

(a) a 3cm diameter cephalohematoma over the right parietal region of the head; and

(b) a 1cm linear scar over the left clavicular region.

The district judge therefore concluded that the Prosecution had proven its case against the appellant beyond reasonable doubt and convicted the appellant on all three charges.

21 On the issue of sentence, the district judge considered the various mitigating factors, including the fact that the appellant had no previous antecedents. Hardship and mental stress suffered by the appellant were not deemed by the district judge to amount to valid mitigating factors. He did, however, take into account the fact that the threat had not lasted for a prolonged period and that the wound inflicted by the knife was relatively minor. Having considered the relevant benchmark sentences for the various offences and all the circumstances of the case, the district judge sentenced the appellant to:

(a) two weeks’ imprisonment for voluntarily causing hurt with a knife;

(b) four months’ imprisonment for criminal intimidation; and

(c) two weeks’ imprisonment for voluntarily causing hurt by slapping the victim and pushing her head against a wall.

The sentences for the first two charges were ordered to run consecutively, resulting in a total custodial term of four months and two weeks.

The appeal

22 The appellant appealed against both conviction and sentence.

The appeal against conviction

23 The appellant’s grounds of appeal centred around the lower court’s findings of fact on the two charges of voluntarily causing hurt and voluntarily causing hurt with a knife. As to the grounds of appeal regarding the third charge of criminal intimidation, the appellant challenged the district judge’s findings of both fact and law.

24 Before delving into each particular charge, I revisited some general principles that an appellate court ought to take cognisance of when invited to scrutinise the findings of a lower court.

General approach in appellate trials

25 It cannot be over-emphasised that an appellate court must be cautious in exercising its powers to overturn a lower court’s finding of fact. This principle applies with equal force in cases where the appellate court has to decide whether the lower court ought to...