Public Prosecutor v Pathip Selvan s/o Sugumaran

JurisdictionSingapore
JudgeKan Ting Chiu J
Judgment Date12 November 2010
Neutral Citation[2010] SGHC 335
Plaintiff CounselNg Cheng Thiam and Chan Huimin (Attorney-General's Chambers)
Docket NumberCriminal Case No 50 of 2009
Date12 November 2010
Hearing Date11 November 2009,16 November 2009,10 November 2009,19 November 2009,03 November 2009,02 November 2009,12 November 2009,20 November 2009,04 November 2009,06 November 2009,05 November 2009
Subject MatterCriminal Law
Year2010
Citation[2010] SGHC 335
Defendant CounselSubhas Anandan and Sunil Sudheesan (KhattarWong)
CourtHigh Court (Singapore)
Published date15 November 2010
Kan Ting Chiu J:

The accused Pathip Selvan s/o Sugumaran who is also known as “Marsiling Baby” is charged that he:

on the 7th day of July 2008, between 8.20 p.m. and 9.30 p.m., at the pavement of SP Powergrid sub-station, which was located opposite Block 154 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 5, Singapore, did commit murder of one Jeevitha d/o Panippan (F/18 years old), and [he has] thereby committed an offence punishable under section 302 of the Penal Code, Chapter 224.

The deceased Jeevitha d/o Panippan was his girlfriend and lover. He refers to her as “Jeev”, and she was also known as “Ashley”. The accused was 22 years old at that time, and the deceased was 18 years old.

At the trial before me, the Prosecution and the Defence produced an Agreed Statement of Facts which set out the police investigations, including the discovery of the body of the deceased, the accused’s arrest and the recovery of the case exhibits including the knife that the accused had used to inflict the injuries on the deceased. In addition to that, a number of written statements of the accused were admitted in evidence during the trial on the accused’s initiative.

The accused’s case was summed up in his submissions at the close of the case:1

The Accused did cause injuries which were sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death to one Jeevitha D/o Panippan (“Jeevitha”) on the evening of 7 July 2008. The central issue is whether the Accused can rely on any of the exceptions under Section 300 of the Penal Code. The Accused is primarily contending that Exception 1 (Grave and Sudden Provocation) (“the Provocation defence”) applies in this case. Further, the Accused contends that Exception 7 (Diminished Responsibility) (“DR”) applies as well. As the trial unfolded, it became patently clear that the factors raised in support of the DR were inextricably linked to the Provocation defence.

Exceptions 1 and 7 to s 300 of the Penal Code (Cap 224 2008 Rev Ed) provide that:

Exception 1.

Culpable homicide is not murder if the offender whilst deprived of the power of self-control by grave and sudden provocation, causes the death of the person who gave the provocation, or causes the death of any other person by mistake or accident.

Exception 7.

Culpable homicide is not murder if the offender was suffering from such abnormality of mind (whether arising from a condition of arrested or retarded development of mind or any inherent causes or induced by disease or injury) as substantially impaired his mental responsibility for his acts and omissions in causing the death or being a party to causing the death.

The accused’s account

Eight written statements of the accused were admitted at the trial on his initiative.2 These statements ran chronologically from a statement recorded by SI Ang Ghim Sing on the day of arrest, ie 8 July 2008 at 8.25 pm,3 to a cautioned statement for the murder of the deceased, recorded on 9 July 2008 by ASP David Ang,4 to a series of six investigation statements recorded by the investigation officer SI Noorma’at Sawab on 11, 12, 14 and 16 July 2008,5 with three statements being recorded on the last day.

In the investigation statements to the investigating officer the accused recounted that he came to know the deceased sometime in November or December 2007. They became friends and were lovers by April 2008 and had the intention to marry. In May 2008, they had a disagreement over something which the accused could not now recall. That went on for several days, and on 28 May 2008, the accused met the deceased and brought her to his uncle’s house. They had a talk in the house, and reconciled. Then, they engaged in sex, and he ejaculated into her over her objections. The deceased was worried that she may become pregnant, and she made a police report that he raped her. In spite of that, the accused and the deceased continued to see each other.

The accused then described the events which led to the deceased’s death. On the evening of 6 July 2008, the accused spoke to the deceased over the telephone and learned that she was suffering from a flu and cold. The next morning, he decided to send her for medical treatment. He took time off work and went to the deceased’s flat which was on the second floor of Block 157, Ang Mo Kio Avenue 5. He arrived at the flat at about 9.00 am, but instead of knocking on the door, he took a chair from a neighbouring house, climbed onto it and looked into the deceased’s bedroom through a window.

He saw the deceased lying on her bed with a male person wearing a red shirt. The man was lying on top of the deceased and they were kissing. The accused was shocked and felt very angry. He went to the door of the flat, and demanded that the deceased open the door. She came to the door, but refused to let him into the flat. He asked her if she was hiding something from him, but she denied that and she also told him that she was scheduled to go with her mother for a medical check-up at Kandang Kerbau Hospital.

The accused went downstairs to the void deck and waited in the hope that he would meet the deceased when she went for the medical appointment. However, he fell asleep whilst waiting and did not see the deceased. He decided to wait for the deceased to return from her medical appointment. Subsequently he found out from a friend of the deceased that she and her mother would be returning to Ang Mo Kio in about an hour and that the deceased wanted him to wait for her at Block 155.

To occupy the time, he made an appointment with a friend, Bala, to meet him at Block 181 to keep him company while he waited for the deceased. The accused made another decision at that time. In his words: 6

I then decided to buy a knife. I wanted to use the knife to threaten Jeev. I knew that she would not tell me the truth if I did not threaten her with a knife. She is a better talker than me and she always has the final say.

and after buying a knife from a shop: 7

I took out the knife from the new casing and threw the casing into a drain together with the plastic bag. I then tucked the knife at the back of my waist and covered it with my t-shirt. When I arrived at the void deck of Blk 181 Ang Mo Kio, I saw a lot of purple coloured flyers on the floor near to the letter boxes. I picked up two or three flyers. I then went up the staircase and took out the knife that I just bought. I rolled the flyers over the knife and folded one end of the flyers over the sharp end of the knife. I then tucked the knife with the flyer at my back and covered it with my shirt. I did this because while I was walking with the knife tucked at my back, I could feel the sharp part of the knife against my back.

Having done that, he met up with some friends at a coffeeshop, and they sat together. At about 8 pm, he received a call from the deceased asking him to meet her at the void deck of Block 155. The accused told his friends that he was going to meet the deceased, and would rejoin them later with the deceased.

He went to Block 155 and met the deceased and her mother. The deceased’s mother had a talk with him, and then she left him and the deceased.

The events that followed are best set out in the accused’s own words: I then asked Jeev to go to Ang Mo Kio West Garden. As I had mentioned before, we used to go to Ang Mo Kio West Garden which is nearby. However, this time, I intend to ask her about the man who was with her this morning. To go to Ang Mo Kio West Garden, we have to walk to Blk 154 Ang Mo Kio, before taking the staircase to the Ang Mo Kio West Garden. While we were at the void deck of Blk 154 Ang Mo Kio, I saw the bushes around the power station infront of Blk 154 Ang Mo Kio. I knew that at that time there will be a lot of people at Ang Mo Kio West Garden and when I saw the bushes behind the power station, I thought that it is a better place to ask Jeev about the main. I knew that if I were to threaten Jeev with the knife that I bought, people at the Ang Mo Kio West Garden could see me but behind the bushes, no one could see clearly because the bushes are quite high and thick. Immediately I told her that I wanted to talk to her. She asked me that we are going up to the garden. I just replied no and I wanted to talk to her and pulled her to the back of the power station behind the bushes. While we were behind the power station, she was standing near to the wall of the power station and I was standing facing her with the bushes behind me. I asked her in English saying “You are not hiding anything from me right?”. She replied “No”. I asked her again in English “You are not lying to me anything?”. She replied “No”. I just shouted at her in Tamil “Who the fuck was the man in the red shirt in bed with you this morning?”. She was stunned. On seeing her reaction, she knew then that I know what she had done. I cried and asked her in Tamil “Why, why, what did I not do for you, I really can’t understand, tell me?”. She replied in Tamil “he is better than you in bed, that is why I am after him”. At this juncture, I took out the knife from behind me with my right hand and stabbed her on her stomach. The moment I stabbed her, she was holding my hands with both her hands. When I pulled the knife out from her body, I felt she scratched my right hand. I continued to use the knife to stab Jeev several times. I could not remember where I had stabbed her or which part of her body that I stabbed her. All this while, Jeev was holding on to the lower part of my left hand just above my wrist with her right hand and kept on shouting in English “I love you, I love you.”. I stopped stabbing her when she released her grip on my right hand. When she let go of my left hand, I realised that Jeev was already lying on the ground. Her legs were nearer to Blk 154 and I was bending down looking at her. I saw that she was bleeding from the left side of her neck. I squat down and kissed her right...

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2 cases
  • Pathip Selvan s/o Sugumaran v PP
    • Singapore
    • Court of Appeal (Singapore)
    • 15 August 2012
    ...accused guilty of the s 300 (c) charge, made the following findings of fact in his grounds of decision, PP v Pathip Selvan s/o Sugumaran [2011] 2 SLR 329 (‘the GD’): (a) The evidence showed that the accused never had any significant functional impairment. He made unremarkable progress throu......
  • Pathip Selvan s/o Sugumaran v Public Prosecutor
    • Singapore
    • Court of Appeal (Singapore)
    • 15 August 2012
    ...of the s 300(c) charge, made the following findings of fact in his grounds of decision, Public Prosecutor v Pathip Selvan s/o Sugumaran [2010] SGHC 335 (“the GD”): the evidence showed that the accused never had any significant functional impairment. He made unremarkable progress through sch......
2 books & journal articles
  • Criminal Law
    • Singapore
    • Singapore Academy of Law Annual Review No. 2010, December 2010
    • 1 December 2010
    ...be discussed here: Public Prosecutor v Astro bin Jakaria [2010] 3 SLR 862 (‘Astro’) and Public Prosecutor v Pathip Selvan s/o Sugumaran [2010] SGHC 335 (‘Pathip Selvan’). In order to successfully raise the defence of provocation, the accused must satisfy the court of two distinct requiremen......
  • Criminal Law
    • Singapore
    • Singapore Academy of Law Annual Review No. 2012, December 2012
    • 1 December 2012
    ...by the words, but would not be so enraged that he would lose his power of self-control: Public Prosecutor v Pathip Selvan s/o Sugumaran[2011] 2 SLR 329 at [36]. The Court of Appeal disagreed; it found (at [61]) that ‘an objective review of the facts suggests that the requirement that the pr......

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