Gaiyathiri d/o Murugayan v Public Prosecutor

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Andrew Phang Boon Leong JCA
• Judgment Date: 29 June 2022
• Neutral Citation: [2022] SGCA 49
• Court: Court of Appeal (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Criminal Appeal No 21 of 2021
• Published date: 05 July 2022
• Year: 2022
• Hearing Date: 29 June 2022
• Plaintiff Counsel: The appellant (in person)
• Defendant Counsel: Mohamed Faizal SC and Sean Teh (Attorney-General's Chambers)
• Subject Matter: Criminal Procedure and Sentencing,Sentencing,Appeals
• Citation: [2022] SGCA 49

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

The appellant pleaded guilty 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 (“the Victim”), a 24-year-old single mother from Myanmar. Another 87 related charges were taken into consideration for the purposes of sentencing.

The facts relating to the offences have been set out by the Judge in his grounds of decision (see Public Prosecutor v Gaiyathiri d/o Murugayan [2021] SGHC 187 (“the GD”)) and we will not rehearse the same save to set out the essential factual background relevant to the present appeal. The Victim started work in the appellant’s household in May 2015. The appellant was unhappy with the Victim’s work. Initially, this involved the applicant raising her voice at the Victim, but in October 2015, it escalated to physical abuse and such abuse continued thereafter. All the 115 charges (including the s 304(a) charge) which had been preferred by the Prosecution against the appellant involve instances of abuse and ill-treatment inflicted by the appellant on the Victim in the 35-day period between 21 June 2016 and 26 July 2016. The abuse inflicted over the night of 25 Jul 2016 up to the early hours of 26 July 2016 led to the Victim’s death and is the subject matter of the s 304(a) charge.

For the purposes of the Statement of Facts (“the SOF”) in the plead guilty proceedings, the Prosecution and the Defence agreed that the assessment of the appellant’s psychiatric conditions by one Dr Derrick Yeo (“Dr Yeo”) from the Institute of Mental Health was to be taken as reflective of her mental state at the time she committed the offences. Dr Yeo was one of the three psychiatrists who undertook a psychiatric assessment of the appellant after her arrest. He diagnosed the appellant as suffering from Major Depressive Disorder (“MDD”) with peripartum onset with moderate severity and Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (“OCPD”) at the time of the offences. He opined that both conditions substantially contributed to her offending and thus partially impaired her mental responsibility.

The appellant’s plea was taken and recorded on 23 February 2021 (“the PG Hearing”). At the PG Hearing, the parties also made sentencing submissions, following which the Judge reserved his decision. At the time of the PG Hearing, the appellant was represented by Mr Sunil Sudheesan and Ms Diana Ngiam (“the Former Counsel”). For reasons immaterial to the appeal, the Former Counsel applied to discharge themselves sometime after the PG Hearing. On 30 March 2021, Mr Joseph Chen (“Mr Chen”) took over conduct of the appellant’s matter and represented her at two further court hearings, on 29 April 2021 and 22 June 2021, respectively. At the hearing on 22 June 2021, the Judge delivered his decision on sentence. Mr Chen was also initially appointed to represent the appellant for the appeal. Under his watch, the appellant also filed CA/CM 3/2021, which was her application for discovery and for leave to adduce further evidence (“CM 3”). Shortly before the hearing of CM 3, Mr Chen applied to discharge himself and the appellant therefore appeared in person at the hearing of the application. We heard CM 3 on 4 May 2022 and dismissed it (see the decision of this court in Gaiyathiri d/o Murugayan v Public Prosecutor [2022] SGCA 38).

Before the Judge, the Prosecution sought a sentence of life imprisonment for the s 304(a) charge. The Defence argued that a sentence of life imprisonment for the s 304(a) charge would be manifestly excessive, and instead sought a global sentence of around 14 years’ imprisonment. After Mr Chen took over conduct of the appellant’s defence, he made submissions in which the length of the proposed global sentence was adjusted downwards to 8‒9 years’ imprisonment. The Judge sentenced the appellant to a global term of 30 years’ imprisonment, imposing the maximum sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment for the s 304(a) charge (see the GD at [83], [86] and [90]). The Judge considered that “this was undoubtedly among the worst cases of culpable homicide imaginable” (see the GD at [69]). He accepted that the appellant’s culpability was “somewhat attenuated” by her psychiatric conditions, but judged that it remained high because the appellant had been “fully cognisant of her actions and purposeful in her criminal conduct”, and her psychiatric conditions was not of such an extent that it affected her capacity to appreciate the gravity and significance of her criminal conduct (see the GD at [73], [75] and [80]). The Judge considered that there were multiple aggravating factors and few, if any, material mitigating factors in the appellant’s favour (see the GD at [64]). In particular, he rejected the appellant’s claims of remorse (see the GD at [65]).

The parties’ arguments on appeal

The appellant appeals against the Judge’s decision on sentence, on the basis that it is manifestly excessive. She contends that an aggregate sentence of 12‒15 years’ imprisonment would be more appropriate. Her Petition of Appeal sets forth the following arguments in support of her appeal: The mitigating force of her psychiatric conditions (namely, MDD with peripartum onset and OCPD) is substantial and compelling enough to warrant a reduction in the length of her imprisonment. The Judge had erred by placing undue weight on Dr Yeo’s opinion that she had retained the “cognitive and volitional capacity to engage in purposeful, planned actions in choosing methods in which to inflict physical punishment [on the Victim]” (see also the GD at [76]). The appellant argues that the Judge failed to have regard to the various stressors which she had faced at the material time (such as her children’s ill-health which she believed to be the result of the Victim’s poor hygiene standards) and which had contributed to her psychiatric conditions. The Judge also failed to properly consider the opinion of one Dr Jacob Rajesh (“Dr Rajesh”), who had diagnosed her as suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (“OCD”) (instead of OCPD) in addition to MDD. Dr Rajesh was one of the three psychiatrists who examined the appellant after her arrest and he was engaged by the Defence. The appellant says that Dr Rajesh’s diagnosis of OCD would “negate or contradict” Dr Yeo’s opinion. The Judge has not given sufficient weight to her feelings of repentance and remorse. The Judge failed to give weight to the fact that her psychiatric conditions have improved since she was put on remand and received proper treatment in prison, which is evident from how she had refrained from using violence despite allegedly being subject to bullying and ill-treatment by her fellow inmates in prison. This, the appellant says, shows that her offending behaviour had been a result of her psychiatric conditions, in respect of which she had had no access to medical treatment at the time of the offences. She had “felt pressured into hastening the receipt of her sentences in her case” because she thought that by doing so, she could hasten the sentencing process for her mother, Prema d/o Naraynasamy (“Prema”). Prema is the appellant’s co-accused in relation to some of the offences. Thus, the appellant says, due weight ought to have been given by the Judge to Dr Rajesh’s diagnosis of OCD, and in the alternative, a Newton Hearing should have been convened to deal with the differences in opinion between Dr Rajesh and Dr Yeo. Judicial mercy warrants a reduction in her custodial sentence because her psychiatric conditions and the difficult conditions in prison mean that she would suffer disproportionately in prison as compared to other inmates who are not suffering from similar psychiatric conditions.

In her skeletal arguments, the appellant made some further related points: Her children’s ill-health and her perceived hygiene issues with the Victim, in her words, “made [her] more [stressed] which caused [her] to snap”. It is important for a sentencing court to take note of her improvement in behaviour since she was placed on remand.

In response, the Prosecution submits that the Judge’s decision on sentence was entirely appropriate and there is therefore no ground for appellate intervention. In particular, it argues that the Judge had already placed appropriate weight on the appellant’s psychiatric conditions in his decision on sentence, and that he had been correct in concluding that there were no real mitigating factors operating in the appellant’s favour. Also, the Prosecution says, there is no factual basis for the doctrine of judicial mercy to apply in this case. Finally, the Prosecution argues, in so far as the appellant seeks to rely on Dr Rajesh’s opinion and resile from her admission in the SOF that Dr Yeo’s assessment of her psychiatric conditions was reflective of her mental state at the time of the offences, she should not be permitted to do so. This is because there is no evidence that in relation to her guilty plea, the appellant was not genuinely free to decide whether or not to plead guilty, and her admission to the SOF had been fully voluntary and unequivocal.

The issues

There are two issues arising in this appeal for our determination: First, given the appellant’s unqualified admission to the SOF at the PG Hearing, which sets out Dr Yeo’s assessment of her psychiatric conditions as being reflective of her mental state at the time of the offences, is she permitted to rely on Dr Rajesh’s diagnosis of OCD in this appeal? Second, has the appellant demonstrated any ground for us to intervene in the sentence imposed by the Judge, whether in respect of the s 304(a) charge, the remaining 27 charges, or in the...