Govindaraj Perumalsamy and Others v Public Prosecutor and Other Appeals

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Yong Pung How CJ
• Judgment Date: 04 February 2004
• Neutral Citation: [2004] SGHC 16
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Published date: 20 February 2004
• Year: 2004
• Plaintiff Counsel: A Rajandran and Pratap Kishan (A Rajandran, Joseph and Nayar)
• Defendant Counsel: Glenn Seah Kim Ming (Deputy Public Prosecutor)
• Subject Matter: Criminal Procedure and Sentencing,Identification parade,Whether alleged procedural irregularities that occurred before and during the identification parade tainted the identification evidence,Sentencing,Whether sentence imposed was manifestly excessive,Evidence,Identification,Three-step test,Quality of identification evidence,Supporting evidence,Whether rejected false alibi sufficed as supporting evidence,Witnesses,Whether trial judge's assessment of witnesses' credibility was flawed
• Citation: [2004] SGHC 16

4 February 2004

Yong Pung How CJ:

1 The four appellants were convicted of an offence under s 394 of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 1985 Rev Ed) for committing robbery with hurt. They were each sentenced to six years’ imprisonment and 12 strokes of the cane, with the imprisonment sentences backdated to 28 February 2003, the date they were first remanded. At the end of the hearing before me, I dismissed the first, second and fourth appellants’ appeals against conviction and sentence and allowed the third appellant’s appeal. I now give my reasons.

Background

2 The complainant, Veerappan Durai (“Veerappan”), is an Indian national. He alleged that he was robbed and assaulted by six unidentified male Indians on 3 February 2003 at 11.00pm near Lorong 24 Geylang. He was robbed of a Nokia 8250 handphone (valued at $200), a gold chain (valued at $480) and $30 cash. He also alleged that he was hit on his head with a wooden pole from behind, and that he suffered punches on his forehead and left cheek.

3 On 26 February 2003, the police arrested the four appellants upon an informant’s information. An identification parade was conducted on the night of 27 February 2003 and Veerappan identified the four appellants. The two other unidentified men remain at large.

4 The first to fourth appellants, Govindaraj Perumalsamy, Ramaiah Guna Sekaran, Rathinam Manikandan and Soupramaniane D Jeamany respectively, are all Indian nationals. At the time of their arrests, the second and fourth appellants possessed special passes that enabled them to stay in Singapore, pending the outcome of their compensation claims for injuries suffered at work. However, the first and third appellants had overstayed. In the court below, they pleaded guilty to overstaying under s 15(3) of the Immigration Act (Cap 133, 1997 Rev Ed). The first appellant also pleaded guilty to fraudulent possession of a work permit under s 35(1) of the Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order and Nuisance) Act (Cap 184, 1997 Rev Ed).

The Prosecution’s case

5 The Prosecution’s version of events was that Veerappan saw the four appellants walking towards him along Geylang Road near Lorong 24 as he was walking towards a bus stop to take a bus to Tekka (Serangoon Road). The first, second and fourth appellants approached Veerappan. The fourth appellant talked to him for five minutes before he pulled Veerappan’s shirt and demanded the latter’s gold chain and handphone. When Veerappan refused to comply, the fourth appellant punched him on the forehead and seized his handphone and $30 from his shirt pocket. The second appellant hit him with a wooden pole from behind while the first appellant punched him on his left cheek and snatched his gold chain.

6 Veerappan noticed that the first appellant wore one earring and had a bangle on his right hand. He also observed that the third appellant was standing 6 to 10m away and appeared to be a lookout. The remaining two unidentified men were standing 4 to 5m away. After the robbery and assault, Veerappan saw the first, second and fourth appellants running towards Lorong 24 Geylang while the third appellant ran away in another direction. The remaining two unidentified men had disappeared. Because these two men did not come to his assistance, Veerappan assumed that they were also involved.

7 Feeling dizzy after the assault, Veerappan sat on the ground to recover. After half an hour, he took a taxi home and recounted the events to his friend Sathiah. They then returned to the scene of the crime because Sathiah wanted to see the place. Thereafter, both of them went to Geylang Neighbourhood Police Centre to lodge a police report. The next day on 4 February 2003, Veerappan was examined by one Dr Pushparanee Somasundram. She testified that Veerappan told her that he had lost consciousness for an unknown duration after the assault and that he suffered injuries on his left thigh and on the left side of his face. She found that there was pain and tenderness on his left cheek as well as an abrasion on his left thigh.

The Defence

8 The crux of the four appellants’ defences was that of mistaken identity and denial that they were at the scene of the crime on the night in question. They also alleged that Veerappan identified them because he had seen them and their photographs before the identification parade. Save that the second and fourth appellants had met earlier at the same lawyer’s office regarding their compensation claims and a few more times after that, the four appellants denied knowing one another or Veerappan.

9 At the material time, the first appellant claimed that he was at a boarding house at Nos 4 and 6 Lorong 24 Geylang hiding from a police raid. The second appellant asserted that he was in his room in Hougang. The third appellant professed that he was with his friend Kannan at Tekka before they returned to their lodging at Lorong 30 Geylang. The fourth appellant testified that he was watching a 9.00pm movie, “Anbesivam”, at the Plaza Theatre in Jalan Sultan. After the movie ended at 12.30am, he only had enough money to take a taxi to Boon Lay MRT Station where he spent the night, before proceeding to his work quarters at Tuas in the morning.

10 All four appellants also averred that the identification parade was improperly conducted. Apparently, before the identification parade was conducted on the night of 27 February 2003, the appellants were brought to the investigating officer’s office that morning to swear on a Hindu deity. Later that evening, statements were recorded from them and their photographs were taken using a handphone and presumably shown to Veerappan, who was brought to see them in the investigating officer’s room. Thereafter, the identification parade was held, comprising eleven people of whom eight, including themselves, were Indian males while two were Malay males and one, a Chinese male. The appellants also claimed that everyone in the line up wore their own clothes during the parade.

The decision of the court below

11 The trial judge recognised that the case against the four appellants hinged on the testimony of the key prosecution witness, Veerappan, and his identification of the appellants. The trial judge found that Veerappan had made no mistake in identifying his assailants. He dismissed the Defence’s contention that convicting the appellants based solely on Veerappan’s testimony was unsafe because of the numerous inconsistencies and whimsical changes in Veerappan’s testimony. The trial judge held that Veerappan had no reason to frame the four appellants and that he was, on the whole, a truthful witness. The discrepancies in Veerappan’s testimony were not material and only reflected his honesty in narrating the events to the best of his recollection.

12 On the other hand, the trial judge disbelieved the defences of all four appellants and held that they had concocted their defences. He further disbelieved their allegations regarding the procedural irregularities that occurred before and during the identification parade.

Appeal against conviction

13 The appellants advanced three main contentions on appeal. First they alleged that the identification evidence was unreliable because the quality of the evidence was poor and because Veerappan was not a credible witness. Second, the identification evidence was said to be tainted because of alleged procedural irregularities that happened before and during the identification parade. Finally, the appellants claimed that the trial judge’s assessment of their credibility and that of various prosecution witnesses was flawed.

14 I shall now deal with each of these arguments in turn.

Whether the identification of the appellants was unreliable – quality of the evidence

15 The law on identification evidence was laid down in Heng Aik Ren Thomas v PP [1998] 3 SLR 465. In that case, the Court of Appeal adapted the guidelines laid down in R v Turnbull [1977] QB 224 into a three-step test as follows:

(a) The first question that a judge should ask when encountering a criminal case concerning identification evidence is whether the case against the accused depends wholly or substantially on the correctness of the identification evidence which is alleged by the Defence to be unreliable.

(b) If so, the second question should be this. Is the identification evidence of good quality, taking into account the circumstances in which the identification by the witness was made?

(c) Where the quality of the identification evidence is poor, the judge should go on to the third question. Is there any other evidence that goes to support the correctness of the identification?

16 As to the second question, the Court of Appeal suggested a non-exhaustive list of factors and circumstances that could be considered in assessing whether the identification evidence was of good quality. These included:

(a) the length of time that the witness observed the accused;

(b) the distance at which the observation was made;

(c) the presence of obstructions in the way of the observation;

(d) the number of times the witness saw the accused;

(e) the frequency with which the witness saw the accused;

(f) the presence of any special reasons for the witness to remember the accused;

(g) the length of time which elapsed between the original observation and the subsequent identification to the police; and

(h) the presence of material discrepancies between the description of the accused as given by the witness and the actual appearance of the accused.

17 At the third stage of the test, if the judge is unable to find other supporting evidence for the identification, he should be mindful that a conviction based on such poor identification evidence would be unsafe.

18 Upon applying the three-step test, the trial judge was satisfied that the case against the appellants depended wholly or substantially on the correctness of the identification evidence. He then went on to consider whether the evidence was of good quality and concluded...