Iskandar Bin Abdul Rahim v Public Prosecutor

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: See Kee Oon
• Judgment Date: 14 February 2001
• Neutral Citation: [2001] SGDC 46
• Year: 2001
• Published date: 19 April 2005
• Citation: [2001] SGDC 46
• Court: District Court (Singapore)

Iskandar Bin Abdul Rahim ...appellant

v

Public Prosecutor ...respondent

Citation:	DAC No 31252 of 2000 & 6 ors
Jurisdiction:	Singapore
Date:	2001:02:14
	2001:01:31, 2001:01:29
Court:	Subordinate Courts
Coram:	See Kee Oon, District Judge
Counsel:	Appellant in person
	Edwin San (Deputy Public Prosecutor) for the respondent

JUDGMENT:

Grounds of Decision

The charges

1. The accused was convicted after a two-day trial on the following two charges:

(1) DAC 31252/2000:

You, ISKANDAR BIN ABDUL RAHIM, M/26 YRS (DOB 05.05.75) NRIC NO: S7512832J are charged that you on 23^rd day of June 2000, at or about 3.30 am, inside the lift of Blk 323 Bukit Batok Street 33, Singapore did pretended (sic) to hold the office of a police officer, as a public servant and in such assumed character, to wit, did check on one Chen Xiu Qing, F/18 yrs under colour of such office and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 170 of the Penal Code, Chapter 224.

(2) DAC 31253/2000:

You, ISKANDAR BIN ABDUL RAHIM, M/26 YRS (DOB 05.05.75) NRIC NO: S7512832J are charged that you on 23^rd day of June 2000, at or about 3.50 am, at the carpark of Bukit Gombak Stadium located along Bukit Batok West Ave 5, Singapore, did use criminal force on one Chen Xiu Qing, F/18 yrs, with intention to outrage her modesty, to wit, by touching her breasts and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 354 of the Penal Code, Chapter 224.

2. This grounds of decision will deal only with my reasons for sentence. There is no appeal against conviction.

Brief background facts

3. The complainant was one Ms Chen Xiu Qing ('Ms Chen'). I accepted her testimony that she had been accosted by the accused while on her way home at about 3.00 am on 23 June 2000. The accused had followed her into the lift in her block of flats at Bukit Batok Street 33. He claimed to be a police officer and flashed a name card with a police logo to identify himself. He asked whether she was involved in a fight. She replied that she was not. He then got Ms Chen to surrender her identity card to him. He interrogated her as to whether she had any drugs on her, and also asked whether she had any tattoos or any previous record. All this while, he pretended to speak to a 'colleague' on his mobile phone, ostensibly to check on Ms Chen's status and identity.

4. The accused then requested her to follow him to his car and return to the police station with him. He ended up driving her to a car park behind the Bukit Gombak MRT station. He parked the car there and then asked Ms Chen again about her previous cases and whether she had any tattoos. She replied that she did have a tattoo on her back. He said that he wanted to see the tattoo. He asked Ms Chen to unbutton her shirt for him to check that there were no other tattoos on her body. Ms Chen was initially reluctant. He claimed that he was just doing his job. She complied. The accused bent over from the driver's seat and used his hand to touch her brassiere strap and brushed against her breasts. He then took a look at her back to see her tattoo. Thereafter, he moved back to his own seat.

5. Ms Chen suspected that something was wrong since the accused had touched what she described as her 'inappropriate place'. She told him that she needed to go to the ladies' urgently. He initially suggested that she should relieve herself in the open space. Upon her insistence, he drove her to a nearby 24-hour coffee-shop. It was there that Ms Chen managed to give him the slip after entering the ladies'. She called her mother up immediately after ascertaining that the accused did not follow her into the coffeeshop from his car. Her identity card was still with the accused. She then proceeded to hail a taxi and head home. Shortly after reaching home, her mother accompanied her to the Bukit Batok Neighbourhood Police Centre, located opposite the block where they lived. There, they lodged a police report. The case was subsequently referred to Jurong Police Division for investigation.

6. The accused conducted his defence in person. He claimed that he had been wrongly identified by the victim during an identification parade, held at Jurong Police Division about one month after the alleged incidents. He also made various allegations of improprieties or irregularities in the conduct of the identification parade. For instance, he alleged that Ms Chen had been influenced by the investigating officer to single him out during the identification parade. He also suggested that Ms Chen might have colluded with another complainant in identifying him.

7. After having considered all the evidence, I rejected his defence and convicted him on both counts. I was satisfied that Ms Chen was a credible witness who had made no mistake in identifying the accused. I had no doubt that she had no reason to fabricate evidence against him.

8. Five other charges of cheating under s 420 of the Penal Code were stood down at the commencement of the trial. After his conviction, the accused elected to plead guilty to two of those charges (DAC 47556 and 47557/2000) and have the remaining three counts (DAC 47554 and 47555/2000 and DAC 2218/2001) taken into consideration for the purpose of sentencing. The two counts he pleaded guilty to involved the issuance of cheques from his bank account which had already been closed. The He iaccused informed me that he had made full restitution in relation to DAC 47556/2000. As for DAC 47557/2000, he had repaid $300.

Antecedents

9. At the commencement of the trial before me, the accused was serving sentence. He had been convicted and sentenced by District Judge Audrey Lim in Court 16 of the Subordinate Courts on 20 September 2000 in connection with an offence of aggravated outrage of modesty under s 354A of the Penal Code (DAC 31251/2000). He was sentenced to 27 months' imprisonment and 3 strokes of the cane.

10. The accused had filed an appeal against his earlier conviction and sentence (MA 261/2000). The appeal was scheduled for hearing on 30 January 2001, in between the two days set aside for the hearing of the present trial. The trial was originally fixed for three days from 29 to 31 January 2001. In order to accommodate the hearing of his appeal, the hearing date on 30 January 2001 was vacated. I was duly notified of this.

11. In the course of the present trial, some evidence was adduced both by the prosecution as well as the defence relating to the s 354A offence, as the facts indicated that it had taken place shortly before the commission of the present two offences. I made it clear to...