Lim Seng Chuan v Public Prosecutor

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Chua F A J
• Judgment Date: 14 November 1975
• Neutral Citation: [1975] SGCA 10
• Docket Number: Criminal Appeal No 6 of 1975
• Date: 14 November 1975
• Published date: 19 September 2003
• Year: 1975
• Plaintiff Counsel: R Joethy and Choo Si Sen (Tang & Tan)
• Citation: [1975] SGCA 10
• Defendant Counsel: Glenn Knight (Deputy Public Prosecutor)
• Court: Court of Appeal (Singapore)
• Subject Matter: Evidence given at voir dire,Whether voir dire evidence could be taken into account at trial proper.,Admissibility of evidence,Statements,Criminal Procedure and Sentencing,Voir dire,Admissibility,Whether voir dire evidence could be taken into account at trial proper,Evidence

Cur Adv Vult

On the morning of 1 July 1974 the dead body of a 13-year-old girl, naked below the waist, was found lying face up on the pavement of a Housing and Development Board 12-storey block of flats known as Block 14, Geylang Bahru, Singapore. The autopsy revealed that she had multiple abrasions on the right side of the body, fractures at the angles of the sixth, seventh and eighth right ribs with no extravasation at these fractures, comminuted fractures on the posterior halves of both parietal bones and the superior portion of the occipital bone. The parieto-temporal sutures, the sagittal sutures and the occipito-temporal sutures were widely separated. The fractured lines continued into the base of the skull. The autopsy also showed that she had petechiae or haemorrhagic spots on the face, inside the mouth at the throat and on the upper part of the neck with frothy mucous at the nostrils and the respiratory tract. At the middle portion of the neck there was a very pale area in contrast to the haemorrhagic areas on the upper part of the neck.

The pathologist who performed the autopsy certified strangulation as the cause of her death. He gave evidence at the trial of the appellant who was charged with her murder. He said he went to the scene and examined the body of the deceased. He found all the joints were stiff, the face and upper part of the neck showed haemorrhagic spots, heavily blood-stained frothy fluid in the nostrils and at the mouth. He checked her external genitalia and found no injuries but nevertheless he took smears from the area between the vagina and the anus and from the vagina behind the hymen. The next day he performed an autopsy on her. In his evidence he expressed the opinion that she had been manually strangulated and that the fractures of the skull and the ribs were postmortem fractures and were consistent with injuries sustained as a result of a fall from some height. He said he examined the smears taken from the vagina and found several sperms which indicated that a male organ had come into contact with the vagina and had emitted seminal fluid.

No one saw how the deceased came to be in the position she was when she was seen on the pavement of Block 14 and no one saw what caused the injuries as earlier described. Nonetheless the uncontradicted medical evidence established beyond doubt that she had been sexually assaulted by a male person and manually strangulated before she was thrown from `some height` by the same male person and that she was thrown from one of the Block 14 flats which overlooked the pavement where she lay dead. The multiple abrasions on the right side of the body and the fractures of three right ribs were strong evidence that she landed on the right side of her body.

Apart from the medical evidence, the prosecution led evidence, substantially undisputed, which proved the following facts namely:

Block 14, Geylang Bahru is a block of flats built by the Housing and Development Board comprising a ground floor and eleven other floors. On each of the 11 floors there are 28 flats with a common corridor running between two rows of flat, there being 14 flats on each side of this corridor. These flats have a number suffixed with a letter of the alphabet. The flats on the first floor carry the suffix `A`, those on the second floor the suffix `B` and so on until the 12th and top floor where the flats have the suffix `L`.

The deceased girl lived with her mother in Flat 1039-C on the third floor of the block. The appellant lived with his wife on the third floor in Flat 1031-C which is on the same side of the corridor. These two flats are separated from each other by another flat numbered 1035-C and a staircase. Directly opposite the appellant`s flat on the other side of the common corridor is Flat 1029-C in which lived a married woman, Saleha bte Shaik Omar. On the day of the alleged offence, the appellant`s wife was at work in a factory but the appellant, who was unemployed, was at home.

On each floor, two adjoining flats share a common rubbish chute which also serves two corresponding adjoining flats on each of the other floors of the block. Each chute thus serves 11 floors and 22 flats. Rubbish thrown from any of the 22 flats into the common chute which serves them empties into a large rubbish bin situated in a small locked cubicle on the ground floor. Every morning the loaded rubbish bins are removed and replaced by empty ones. Flats bearing the common serial number 1031 share a common rubbish chute with flats bearing the common serial number 1035.

A police photographer who was the first police officer to arrive at the scene saw the body of the girl lying on the pavement in line with the 11 flats bearing the common serial number 1031. He examined the large rubbish bin which served these 11 flats together with the adjoining 11 flats which bear the common serial number 1035, and found inside it a pair of slacks and panties and other articles which the girl was wearing on the morning of her death.

The girl`s body was lying on the pavement almost directly below and with her legs towards the bedroom windows of the 11 flats which had the common serial number 1031. The photographic exhibits, particularly `P1`, also showed that these bedroom windows were adjoining to the 11 bedroom windows of the 11 flats which had the common serial number 1027 with about two feet separating each set of adjoining windows.

Of the 11 flats with the common serial number 1031, four were untenanted on the day the girl died and they were locked and the keys kept by the Housing and Development Board, the owners of Block 14. These four flats are on the first, fourth, sixth and eighth floors. Another flat, No 1031-E on the fifth floor, although let had not yet been occupied by the tenant who was in the...