D'Rozario Pancratius Joseph v Public Prosecutor

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: See Kee Oon JC
• Judgment Date: 11 February 2015
• Neutral Citation: [2015] SGHC 46
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Magistrate’s Appeal No 65 of 2014
• Published date: 16 February 2015
• Year: 2015
• Hearing Date: 23 January 2015
• Plaintiff Counsel: Tito Shane Isaac, Jonathan Wong and Tan Chao Yuan (Tito Isaac & Co LLP)
• Defendant Counsel: Yang Ziliang (Attorney-General's Chambers)
• Subject Matter: Criminal Law,Statutory offences,Road Traffic Act,Causing death by reckless or dangerous driving,Criminal Procedure and Sentencing,Sentencing
• Citation: [2015] SGHC 46

See Kee Oon JC:

This is an appeal against conviction and sentence in respect of two charges arising out of a single road accident involving the appellant. One charge was for causing death by dangerous driving, an offence under s 66(1) of the Road Traffic Act (Cap 276, 2004 Rev Ed) (“RTA”), and the other was for causing hurt by a rash act endangering the personal safety of others, an offence under s 337(a) of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed). The appellant had claimed trial to these two charges and pursuant to his conviction he was sentenced to 4 months’ imprisonment and disqualified from driving all classes of vehicles for 5 years in relation to the s 66(1) RTA charge, and fined $5,000 for the charge under s 337(a) of the Penal Code.

The appeal turns on findings of fact. It has never been in doubt that on 9 May 2010 the appellant’s vehicle collided with a motor lorry (“the lorry”) at the controlled junction of Victoria Street and Ophir Road, which resulted in the tragic death of a passenger in the rear cabin of the lorry as well as injuries to the lorry’s driver and other passengers. At the trial below, the appellant vigorously maintained that the traffic lights were green in his favour when he drove into this junction and collided with the lorry. But on appeal he no longer disputes that he had failed to conform with a red light signal at the junction. Instead, the crux of his appeal against conviction, and part of his appeal against sentence, is that the District Judge erred in finding that he had driven through the red light with the mens rea of rashness as opposed to negligence, the former being a more culpable state of mind than the latter.

The proceedings at trial

At the trial, two prosecution witnesses (PW2 and PW6) who were in a vehicle traveling along Victoria Street in the same direction as the appellant testified that they had been waiting at the said junction as the lights were red. There were about 5 to 10 other cars that had stopped alongside them. PW2, the driver of the vehicle, said that he had stopped for nearly a minute when he saw the appellant’s vehicle proceeding across the junction, resulting in the accident with the lorry. The two prosecution witnesses immediately went to the aid of the persons in the lorry. PW2 noticed the appellant, who appeared to be unhurt, come out from his car to sit on the curb. He also saw a young Chinese lady leave the appellant’s car from the front passenger’s side.

The appellant’s defence at trial was essentially a denial that the lights were red against him at the said junction. He also asserted that his actions were not the proximate and efficient cause of the death and injuries of the persons travelling in the lorry. He was driving home towards Bedok from his office at High Street Centre and was familiar with the stretch of road. He had met the young Chinese lady that day at the casino and was giving her a lift to her home in Tampines. He did not know her name and actual address or contact details. He maintained that he had checked the traffic lights and was sure the lights were green in his favour. He proceeded to drive across the junction at a steady speed of about 40 to 45 km/h. He saw no cars in his lane in front of him and no pedestrians crossing or on his left or right. He claimed that as he crossed the junction, he suddenly noticed the lorry travelling very fast along Ophir Road from his left. He applied his brakes but could not avoid a collision with the lorry.

At the conclusion of the trial, the District Judge concluded that the two charges had been proved beyond reasonable doubt. In her grounds of decision in Public Prosecutor v D’Rozario Pancratius Joseph [2014] SGDC 287, she stated that she accepted the evidence of the prosecution witnesses PW2 and PW6 as they were independent witnesses who gave clear and consistent accounts. She found at [92] that the appellant was aware that the lights were red but had entered the junction with the consciousness that the mischievous and illegal consequences may follow but with the belief that he had taken sufficient precautions to prevent their happening. Thus she found that he had acted rashly and endangered the personal safety of others.

The appeal against conviction

The appeal came before me for hearing on 23 January 2015 and I reserved judgment in order to review the evidence and the submissions. I indicated that I wished to satisfy myself that the District Judge’s finding of the appellant’s rashness and consciousness that the lights were red against him could be supported on the totality of the evidence.

On appeal, the appellant conceded that the prosecution’s evidence would support the District Judge’s finding that the lights were red against him. It was also no longer disputed that the accident was the proximate cause of death. It was however submitted that the appellant had not acted rashly in causing the accident. He contended that he had been merely inattentive and negligent. Thus, he said, the court ought to amend the charges in this way: by substituting the conviction under s 66(1) of the RTA with a conviction under s 304A(b) of the Penal Code of causing death by a negligent act, and by substituting the conviction under s 337(a) of the Penal Code, for endangering the personal safety of others by a rash act, with a conviction under s 337(b) of the Penal Code for doing so by a negligent act.

Counsel for the appellant put forward two main arguments in support of the submission that he had not been rash. The first was the argument that no logical or reasonable person would have knowingly “cruised” through a traffic junction at about 40 km/h when the lights were red against him, since there was no evidence that the appellant had been speeding. While this contention seems intuitively attractive at first blush, I am in full agreement with the respondent’s response to this: an offence of dangerous driving is committed precisely in such circumstances where a reasonable person would not have acted in the same way. An appeal to logic or rationality does not therefore advance the appellant’s case very far.

The second argument was that the appellant must have made a mistake as he probably had been looking at the traffic lights at the next traffic junction instead, where Victoria Street and Arab Street intersect. Thus, it was said, he had harboured the genuine but mistaken belief that the lights were green in his favour at the junction where the accident occurred. I will deal with this later.

I shall state my conclusion at the beginning: I agree with the District Judge that the charges were proved beyond reasonable doubt. In particular, I find no reason to disagree with her finding that the appellant had consciously chosen to drive through the junction in question when the traffic lights were showing red against him. I set out my main reasons below.

At the trial below, the appellant maintained that the lights were green in his favour. He claimed in his defence that he had seen no pedestrians crossing in front of him, no vehicles travelling across Ophir Road, and had proceeded to drive across the junction since the lights were green. The District Judge doubted his credibility, noting the “many inconsistencies and contradictions” in his testimony, including his concealment of the fact that he had a female passenger in his vehicle at the material time. This fact was not mentioned in his police report or subsequent statements to the police. Accordingly, she did not believe his testimony that the lights had been green in his favour.

Instead, the District Judge accepted the evidence of...