Mohammad Zam bin Abdul Rashid v Public Prosecutor

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Choo Han Teck J
• Judgment Date: 23 February 2007
• Neutral Citation: [2007] SGCA 11
• Docket Number: Criminal Case Appeal No 7 of 2006 and Criminal Motion No 38 of 2006
• Date: 23 February 2007
• Year: 2007
• Published date: 17 April 2007
• Plaintiff Counsel: Andy Yeo Kian Wee, Lim Dao Kai and Jesslyn Chia (Allen & Gledhill)
• Citation: [2007] SGCA 11
• Defendant Counsel: Janet Wang (Deputy Public Prosecutor)
• Court: Court of Appeal (Singapore)
• Subject Matter: Appeal,Appellant pleading guilty to offence of culpable homicide not amounting to murder,Criminal Procedure and Sentencing,Adducing fresh evidence,Applicable principles for allowing fresh evidence at appeal where appellant pleading guilty to offence and appeal relating to sentence only,Sentencing,Section 257 Criminal Procedure Code (Cap 68, 1985 Rev Ed), s 55(1) Supreme Court of Judicature Act (Cap 322, 1999 Rev Ed),Whether sentence of life imprisonment unreasonable where evidence of familial support to address appellant's need for long-term medical treatment unconvincing,Mentally disordered offenders

23 February 2007

Choo Han Teck J (delivering the grounds of decision of the court):

1 The appellant killed his wife on 2 December 2005. On 17 July 2006, he pleaded guilty to a charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under s 304(a) of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 1985 Rev Ed) and was sentenced by the High Court to life imprisonment. He appealed against that sentence. He also made an application for further evidence to be adduced and considered for the purpose of the appeal. The reason for this application arose from the mental condition of the appellant and the judge’s grounds of decision (see [2006] SGHC 168) in respect of the sentence imposed. We shall first set out the circumstances of the offence and the mitigation speech made on the appellant’s behalf. The statement of facts (which had included the statement that the appellant was estranged from his siblings) had been read to the appellant and he had accepted it without objection.

2 The appellant is 45 years old and has a twin brother, Ramziz, who has been prominent in the application for further evidence to be adduced. The appellant was a caretaker in a condominium and had been married to his wife for eight years. They have no children. In addition to Ramziz, the appellant has five other siblings. About 1.00am on 2 December 2005, the appellant battered his wife so severely that in spite of medical attention in hospital, the wife succumbed to the injuries she suffered, mainly to her face and head, and died on 4 December 2005.

3 A consultant forensic psychiatrist with the Institute of Mental Health, Dr Stephen Phang, examined the appellant after he had been arrested by the police, and found the appellant to be suffering from a psychiatric disorder known as “Frontal Lobe Syndrome”. A person with this condition is known to be emotionally labile and unable to control his impulses. It was for this reason that Dr Phang formed the opinion that the appellant had lost his impulse control when he killed his wife. At that time, he was also intoxicated with alcohol which most likely aggravated his medical condition, and had lost his temper, leading him eventually to shout at her and batter her. The court below noted that Dr Phang was also of the opinion that the appellant was a potential danger to those around him, and that he required “long-term psychiatric follow-up and care, including the possibility of treatment with medication such as a mood stabiliser”.

4 A second psychiatric opinion was taken from Dr Lim Yun Chin, a consultant psychiatrist at the Raffles Hospital, on the application of defence counsel. Dr Lim is also a consultant psychiatrist with the Singapore Prison Service’s medical board. He was of the opinion that the syndrome developed insidiously, and the appellant was also unaware that alcohol would aggravate his loss of impulse control. He was of the view that although the appellant’s condition was irreversible, it could be controlled with drugs, regular psychiatric assessment, counselling, and psycho-educational programmes. The court below noted the mitigation put forward on the appellant’s behalf, and the undertaking by the appellant that he would abstain from alcohol. The court then referred (at [30] of the grounds of decision) to the three conditions commonly relied upon by the courts in support of a sentence of life imprisonment. The conditions are, first, “[t]he offence or offences are in themselves grave enough to require a very long sentence”; second, if “[i]t appears from the nature of the offences or from the accused’s history that he is a person of unstable character likely to commit such offences in the future”, and third, if “the offences are committed, the consequences to others may be specially injurious, as in the case of sexual offences or crimes of violence”: see also Purwanti Parji v PP [2005] 2 SLR 220. The court noted that the second condition was the most relevant and contentious in the appellant’s case. It was of the view that although the general deterrence of a long sentence was less relevant in a case where the offender was suffering from a mental disorder at the time of the offence, the courts would have to take into account the protection of the public against such an offender. In his grounds of decision, the learned...