Gaiyathiri d/o Murugayan v Public Prosecutor

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Andrew Phang Boon Leong JCA
• Judgment Date: 04 May 2022
• Neutral Citation: [2022] SGCA 38
• Court: Court of Appeal (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Criminal Motion No 3 of 2022
• Published date: 07 May 2022
• Year: 2022
• Hearing Date: 04 May 2022
• Plaintiff Counsel: The applicant (in person)
• Defendant Counsel: Mohamed Faizal SC, Senthilkumaran Sabapathy and Sean Teh (Attorney-General's Chambers)
• Subject Matter: Criminal Procedure and Sentencing,Appeal,Adducing fresh evidence,Disclosure
• Citation: [2022] SGCA 38

Andrew Phang Boon Leong JCA (delivering the judgment of the court ex tempore): Introduction

The applicant in Criminal Motion No 3 of 2022 (“CM 3”) pleaded guilty on 23 February 2021 (“the PG Hearing”) before a judge in the General Division of the High Court (“the Judge”) to 28 offences under the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed) (“the Penal Code”), including a charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under s 304(a) of the Penal Code for having caused the death of her foreign domestic worker, a 24-year-old single mother from Myanmar (“the Victim”). Another 87 related charges were taken into consideration for the purposes of sentencing.

It was agreed, for the purposes of the plead guilty proceedings, that the psychiatric assessment of the applicant by one Dr Derrick Yeo (“Dr Yeo”) of the Institute of Mental Health (“IMH”) should be taken as reflective of her mental state at the time she committed the offences. Dr Yeo assessed the applicant as suffering from Major Depressive Disorder with peripartum onset with moderate severity and Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (“OCPD”) at the time of the offences, and that the applicant’s psychiatric conditions partially impaired her mental responsibility for her acts, although she was not of unsound mind at the material time. Having considered the proper mitigatory weight to be placed on the applicant’s psychiatric condition, the Judge sentenced the applicant to an aggregate term of 30 years’ imprisonment.

The applicant has filed an appeal against her sentence in Criminal Appeal No 21 of 2021 (“CCA 21”). In CM 3, the applicant applies for: (a) an order against the respondent (the Prosecution) and/or the Singapore Prison Service (“the SPS”) for disclosure of five categories of documents (“the Additional Materials”); and (b) leave to adduce as further evidence in CCA 21 the Additional Materials and further evidence pertaining to her psychiatric condition, consisting of, in the main, an alleged further report by Dr Jacob Rajesh (“Dr Rajesh”), another psychiatrist who had also examined her.

Unlike Dr Yeo, Dr Rajesh assessed the applicant as suffering from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (“OCD”) with “absent insight”, but not OCPD. Like Dr Yeo, Dr Rajesh had also assessed the applicant as not being of unsound mind at the time of the offences, and that she had been aware of her actions and had known that they were wrong and against the law. The applicant claims that, in the alleged further report, which has not been put before us, Dr Rajesh sets out, amongst other things, his disagreement with Dr Yeo’s assessment that the applicant had the cognitive and volitional capacity in inflicting violence on the Victim, and his disagreement with Dr Yeo’s diagnosis of the applicant as suffering from OCPD instead of OCD.

In the applicant’s affidavit filed in support of CM 3, she also made several allegations against Mr Sunil Sudheesan and Ms Diana Ngiam (“the Former Counsel”), who had represented her from 1 August 2016 until 30 March 2021. The latter date was slightly more than a month after her guilty plea had been taken before the Judge at the PG Hearing, following which the Judge reserved his decision on the appropriate sentence. The applicant alleges that the Former Counsel had not gone through the Statement of Facts (“SOF”) with her, that she had raised her objections to particular points in a draft version of the SOF through the Former Counsel but which were included anyway in the SOF, and that they did not show her a copy of the mitigation plea, which had been filed for the purposes of the PG Hearing. The applicant also alleges that she had informed the Former Counsel to obtain medical reports of her mother, Prema d/o Naraynasamy (“Prema”) between 2016 until 2021 from the SPS. Prema is a co-accused in some of the offences with which the applicant had been charged. Prema’s medical reports is part of the Additional Materials for which the applicant seeks disclosure in CM 3.

Following the discharge of the Former Counsel, Mr Joseph Chen (“Mr Chen”) took over as counsel for the applicant for the remainder of the plead guilty proceedings until the Judge sentenced the applicant on 22 June 2021. Mr Chen was later appointed to represent the applicant for CCA 21 and CM 3. On 8 April 2022, the applicant sought leave to file an affidavit in reply to the affidavit filed by the SPS (on the respondent’s behalf) in these proceedings. We granted the applicant’s request on 11 April 2022 and directed that the reply affidavit be filed by 22 April 2022. However, on 19 April 2022, Mr Chen applied to discharge himself, citing the difficulties he faced in complying with court timelines due to his health ailments. We allowed his application and so the applicant now acts in person, although we note that Mr Chen has agreed to assist the applicant (whilst not representing her) in filing the necessary court documents. Mr Chen’s discharge necessitated a further extension of time for the applicant to file her reply affidavit, which in the event was filed on the evening of 28 April 2022. In arriving at our decision for CM 3, we have considered the contents of the reply affidavit, which we note, canvassed various other matters, in spite of the court’s earlier direction that it be strictly confined to responding to matters raised in the SPS’s affidavit.

The issues

The main issues before us are: (a) whether there is any basis for this court to order disclosure of the Additional Materials; and (b) whether we should grant the applicant leave to adduce as further evidence in CCA 21 the Additional Materials and/or further evidence of her psychiatric condition.

However, before we turn to these issues, we address two preliminary points. The first point deals with the general approach which we should take in considering CM 3. The respondent, in opposing CM 3, has submitted that the applicant has sought the reliefs therein with the objective of qualifying or retracting her plea of guilt, an attempt which it says should not be permitted, and which by extension will require this court to dismiss CM 3 as well. We have some hesitation in accepting this submission because it conflates two distinct issues: (a) whether there is any merit in the reliefs sought in CM 3, and (b) whether the applicant should be allowed to qualify or retract her plea of guilt after having pleaded guilty before the Judge. We are presently only concerned with the former, and not the latter. Even if the reliefs sought in CM 3 suggest that the applicant is likely to attempt to retract or qualify her plea of guilt (whether in CCA 21 or in any subsequent...