Public Prosecutor v Ganesan Sivasankar
Jurisdiction | Singapore |
Judge | See Kee Oon J |
Judgment Date | 21 July 2017 |
Neutral Citation | [2017] SGHC 176 |
Plaintiff Counsel | Bhajanvir Singh and Goh Yi Ling (Attorney-General's Chambers) |
Docket Number | Magistrate’s Appeal No 52 of 2016 |
Date | 21 July 2017 |
Hearing Date | 28 April 2017 |
Subject Matter | Sentencing,Benchmark sentences,Criminal Procedure and Sentencing |
Year | 2017 |
Defendant Counsel | Tan Cheow Hung and Felicia Ong (Beacon Law Corporation) |
Court | High Court (Singapore) |
Citation | [2017] SGHC 176 |
Published date | 27 July 2017 |
The Respondent was involved in a road traffic accident and was subsequently charged for offences under ss 304A(
After hearing parties on 28 April 2017, I allowed the appeal and enhanced the imprisonment term in respect of the charge under s 304A(
The Respondent was an Indian national who was 28 years old at the material time. Part of the Respondent’s duties involved driving a lorry to ferry workers between their dormitory at Woodlands and his company’s premises at Aljunied. The victims were a motorcycle rider, Mr Chan Kock Chong (“Mr Chan”), and his wife and pillion rider, Mdm Lui Yoke Leng (“Mdm Lui”) (collectively, the “Victims”). The Victims were Malaysians who lived in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, and worked in Singapore. They commuted to Singapore daily on Mr Chan’s motorcycle.
On the fateful morning of 3 September 2013, the Respondent woke up late at 7.30 am, which was the time he was supposed to have picked up the workers. In order to make up for lost time, he called one of the workers using his mobile phone and gave instructions for the workers to proceed to an alternative pick-up point outside Woodlands Fire Station along Woodlands Industrial Park D Street 2. It was undisputed that the Respondent had uneventfully used this alternative pick-up point on a number of prior occasions.
At about 8.30 am, the Respondent reached a U-turn along Woodlands Road. The Respondent had to execute this U-turn in order to get to the alternative pick-up point, as Woodlands Industrial Park D Street 2 was on the opposite side of Woodlands Road. He had to very quickly cut across the two lanes of the opposite side of Woodlands Road after executing the U-turn to turn left into Woodlands Industrial Park D Street 2. In fact, there was an additional filter lane for vehicles intending to make the turn into Woodlands Industrial Park D Street 2, and this started even before the U-turn. In his grounds of decision in
However, just as the Respondent executed the manoeuvre, Mr Chan’s motorcycle was travelling down the opposite side of Woodlands Road after having negotiated an earlier bend along that stretch of road. The result was a collision between the two vehicles.
An eyewitness saw the Victims being thrown off the motorcycle. Mr Chan suffered various injuries as a result of the collision. This gave rise to the charge under s 337(
The District Judge thought that the “central contested issue” was whether Mr Chan’s motorcycle was in a position to be seen by the Respondent before the Respondent executed the manoeuvre and, accordingly, whether the manner in which the Respondent executed the manoeuvre was rash in the circumstances. After a comprehensive review of the evidence, the District Judge concluded that Mr Chan’s motorcycle
Following the Respondent’s conviction, the Prosecution urged the District Judge to impose a sentence of nine to ten months’ imprisonment in respect of the charge under s 304A(
The District Judge first considered the Respondent’s degree of rashness. He held that this was a case where the Respondent had “looked without seeing”. Thus, while Mr Chan’s motorcycle was close enough to be seen by the Respondent at the U-turn, the District Judge “could not find enough evidence to go further and find (or even comfortably infer) that [the Respondent] did in fact see” Mr Chan’s motorcycle at the U-turn. The District Judge noted that there could have been many reasons for this. However, there was no explanation from the Respondent as to what was really going on. Based on the evidence presented, there was not enough for the District Judge to go beyond the basic particulars as set out in the charges. Without the ability to discern between the various possibilities, the District Judge resolved the doubt in favour of the Respondent. He stated as follows:
… This meant that I took the position that the Accused could have, and ought to have kept a proper lookout for all on-coming traffic while at the U-turn point; that he could have seen the scooter approaching as it was then around the area near lamppost 322; that he ought to have given way to the scooter by not encroaching into the path of the scooter; that he ought to have continued to keep a proper look out as he cut left across the lanes, including by checking his left blind spot; that he had failed to keep a proper lookout at both instances; and that his actions of executing the U-turn and cutting left across the lanes and into the path of the scooter without having kept a proper lookout was rash in the circumstances. …
On this basis, the District Judge distinguished the precedents tendered by the Prosecution (
As noted earlier, the Prosecution’s appeal was ultimately only against the District Judge’s sentence of 12 weeks’ imprisonment in respect of the charge under s 304A(
The Prosecution’s contentions provided a convenient framework for analysing the various issues that were raised in this appeal. Correspondingly, the three broad issues that I had to determine were:
I now turn to consider these issues
The Prosecution made two submissions with regard to the factual basis for sentencing. First, it was argued that the District Judge erred in finding that the Respondent did not see Mr Chan’s motorcycle. Since Mr Chan’s motorcycle was in a position to be seen and was in fact seen by the eyewitness who was the driver of the car immediately behind the Respondent’s lorry at the U-turn, there...
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