PP v Lim Cheng Ji Alvin

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Sundaresh Menon CJ
• Judgment Date: 20 July 2017
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Magistrate's Appeal No 9029 of 2017
• Date: 20 July 2017

Public Prosecutor

and

Lim Cheng Ji Alvin

[2017] SGHC 183

Sundaresh Menon CJ

Magistrate's Appeal No 9029 of 2017

High Court

Criminal Procedure and Sentencing — Sentencing — Principles — 27-year-old committing drug offences — Whether sentence of probation is manifestly inadequate or wrong in principle

Alvin Lim Cheng Ji (“the Respondent”) was almost 27 years old when officers from the Central Narcotics Bureau arrested him at his home. Upon his arrest, the Respondent surrendered one small sachet from within his safe to the officers. The contents of the sachet were analysed and found to contain 0.91g of cannabis mixture.

The Respondent pleaded guilty to one charge of drug possession. Another charge of drug possession and one charge of possession of a utensil intended to be used for the consumption of drugs were also taken into consideration during sentencing. The district judge (“the District Judge”) sentenced the Respondent to probation. The Prosecution appealed against the sentence, arguing that a term of imprisonment should have been imposed.

Held, allowing the appeal:

(1) The District Judge's emphasis on rehabilitation was misplaced. The starting point was to recognise that the law took a presumptive view that with young offenders, meaning those aged 21 or under, the primary sentencing consideration was rehabilitation. This, to a certain extent, was because the chances of effective rehabilitation in the case of young offenders were thought to be greater than in the case of adults. But that was not all: the different approach for young offenders was also justified for two other reasons at least. The first was that the young may know no better; some regard should therefore be had to the fact that the limited nature and extent of their life experiences might explain their actions and justify some consideration being extended to them. The second was that with young offenders, society generally has an especially strong interest in their rehabilitation; their diversion from the prison environment was therefore a desirable goal where this would enhance their prospects of rehabilitation: at [5(a)], [5(b)] and [6].

(2) With an older offender, it was not presumptively the case that the primary sentencing consideration was rehabilitation. Instead, particularly in the context of drug offences, deterrence was the dominant consideration and, save for the “purely exceptional case”, a custodial term was usually warranted. Precedents where probation, instead of a sentence of imprisonment, has been ordered for older drug offenders involved those who were suffering from psychiatric or other conditions that were in some way causally related to their offences. This was not to say that probation would, as a matter of course, be ordered in such cases; rather, where an offender proved that he was suffering from a psychiatric or other condition that was in some way causally related to his drug offence, the court might consider it permissible, in the appropriate circumstances, to depart from the default position that a custodial term was warranted. In the present case, the Respondent did not claim to suffer from any such psychiatric or physical condition: at [7].

(3) There was no reason to think that the same position taken with young offenders should also apply to the Respondent. He was almost 27 years old at the time of the offence and had been holding a senior position in one of his father's companies for some years. The Respondent's counsel could not point to a single case of an offender approaching the age of the Respondent who had been sentenced to probation for a drug offence in the absence of exceptional circumstances such as a mental condition that affected the offender's culpability: at [15].

(4) The District Judge was also wrong to place any reliance on the alleged charitable or other unspecified good works of the Respondent. Such works cannot be regarded as mitigating on the basis of some form of social accounting that balanced the past good works of the offender with the present offences. The only basis on which limited weight might be given to such works was if they were sufficient to demonstrate that the offence in question was a one-off aberration, which might then displace the need for specific deterrence. The present case was not a one-off aberration for the Respondent, who had a history of casual drug use dating back to 2006. The charitable or other good works of the Respondent cannot therefore have any relevance in the present case: at [21], [23] and [24].

(5) This case fell squarely within the ambit of the position laid down by the High Court in Dinesh Singh Bhatia s/o Amarjeet Singh v PP [2005] 3 SLR(R) 1 (“Dinesh Singh”). The sentencing range that was laid down in that case for a first offender who was charged with possession of a Class A controlled drug was a term of imprisonment of between six and 18 months. The judge in Dinesh Singh imposed a sentence of eight months because he thought the baseline of six months was applicable to younger offenders, and also, because the drug in question was cocaine which was a particularly lethal drug. On the other hand, the offender in Dinesh Singh was a first-time user. Here the drug in question was cannabis which was perhaps not as pernicious or lethal as cocaine. And the Respondent was somewhat younger than the offender in Dinesh Singh. But, on the other hand, he was a casual user rather than a one-off user. There was a greater need for specific deterrence where casual users of drugs (as opposed to one-off users) were involved. In all the circumstances, the same sentence of eight months as was imposed in Dinesh SinghENR would be appropriate in this case: at [28] and [29].

Ang Peng Thiam v Singapore Medical Council [2017] SGHC 143 (folld)

Angliss Singapore Pte Ltd v PP [2006] 4 SLR(R) 653; [2006] 4 SLR 653 (folld)

Chen Weixiong Jerriek v PP [2003] 2 SLR(R) 334; [2003] 2 SLR 334 (folld)

Dinesh Singh Bhatia s/o Amarjeet Singh v PP [2005] 3 SLR(R) 1; [2005] 3 SLR 1 (folld)

Keeping Mark John v PP [2017] SGHC 170 (folld)

Ooi Joo Keong v PP [1996] 3 SLR(R) 866; [1997] 2 SLR 68 (refd)

PP v Abdullah bin Shaik Lebbai District Arrest Case No 920471 of 2015 (distd)

PP v Lee Han Fong Lyon [2014] SGHC 89 (distd)

PP v Mok Ping Wuen Maurice [1998] 3 SLR(R) 439; [1999] 1 SLR 138 (refd)

PP v Vikram s/o Ulaganathan [2015] SGDC 292 (distd)

Sim Wen Yi Ernest v PP [2016] 5 SLR 207 (refd)

Vasentha d/o Joseph v PP [2015] 5 SLR 122 (folld)

Wong Kai Chuen Philip v PP [1990] 2 SLR(R) 361; [1990] SLR 1011 (folld)

Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order and Nuisance) Act (Cap 184, 1997 Rev Ed) s 20

Misuse of Drugs Act (Cap 185, 2008 Rev Ed) ss 8(a), 33(1)

Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed) s 323

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