Public Prosecutor v Choo Thiam Hock and Others

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Yong Pung How CJ
• Judgment Date: 06 June 1994
• Neutral Citation: [1994] SGHC 159
• Docket Number: Magistrate's Appeal No 500 of 1992
• Date: 06 June 1994
• Year: 1994
• Published date: 19 September 2003
• Plaintiff Counsel: Jennifer Marie (Deputy Public Prosecutor)
• Citation: [1994] SGHC 159
• Defendant Counsel: Lim Choon Mong (Lim & Lim)
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Subject Matter: Grievous hurt,Appeal,District judge's unfavourable assessment of complainant's testimony based not on demeanour of complainant but on inferences drawn from content of her evidence,Complainant's injuries included three fractured ribs,Criminal Law,Criminal Procedure and Sentencing,Offences,Appellate court's assessment of trial evidence,s 325 Penal Code (Cap 224),Appellate court in as good a position as trial court to assess the same evidence,Respondents attacking complainant Filipino maid,Appeal from district court decision,Whether charge against respondents proved beyond reasonable doubt

Cur Adv Vult

The three respondents were members of the same family, the second respondent Ng Ah Mui being the wife of Choo Thiam Hock the first respondent, and the third respondent Choo Kok Seng being their son. (In this judgment, when referring to the respondents individually, I shall refer to them respectively as the husband, the wife, and the son.) They were jointly tried in the district court on the following amended charges:

First Charge:

You, Choo Thiam Hock, male 38 years, NRIC No 0677186 F

are charged that you, on or about 18 June 1990, between 5.30pm and 6pm, at Blk 864, Tampines Street 83 #04-438, Singapore voluntarily caused grievous hurt to one Lolita Purok, female 37 years, to wit, by punching her on the face, and kicking her on the ribs thus causing the fracture of the 6th, 7th and 8th ribs and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under s 325 of the Penal Code (Cap 224).

Second Charge:

You, Choo Thiam Hock, male 39 years NRIC No 0677186 F

are charged that you, on or about 18 June 1990, at about 7.40pm, at Punggol Point Restaurant, Punggol Point Road, Singapore, used criminal force on one Lolita Purok, female 38 years, to wit, by pulling her hand and dragged her and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under s 352 of the Penal Code (Cap 224).

Third Charge:

You, Ng Ah Mui, female 38 years NRIC No 1845284 G

are charged that you, on or about 18 June 1990, between 5.30pm and 6pm, at Blk 864, Tampines Street 83 #04-438, Singapore, did voluntarily cause hurt to one Lolita Purok, female 38 yrs, to wit, by punching her on the face, and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under s 323 of the Penal Code (Cap 224).

Fourth Charge:

You, Choo Kok Seng, male 15 years NRIC No 7611244 D

are charged that you, on or about 18 June 1990, between 5.30pm and 6pm, at Blk 864, Tampines St 83 #04-438, Singapore, voluntarily caused hurt to one Lolita Purok, female 38 years, by kicking her on the stomach and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under s 323 of the Penal Code (Cap 224).

At the conclusion of the trial, all three respondents were acquitted of their respective charges, except the husband who was convicted on the second charge against him of using criminal force and was fined $500 which has been paid. The public prosecutor being dissatisfied with the acquittals on the other charges lodged these three appeals.

Facts

On the evening of 18 June 1990 the complainant, a Filipina maidservant by the name of Lolita Purok arrived at Punggol Point Restaurant with her employer`s family, being the three respondents. A short while after they were seated, she suddenly left their table and crossed to a table of strangers asking for help, to no avail. The husband came over and took her forcefully by the hand but she resisted and continued to ask for help. Another stranger, Sam Peterson (PW3), who was having dinner at another table with some friends, went over to investigate the commotion. The husband told him to mind his own business as it was a family matter. The complainant, however, clutched at Mr Peterson`s legs and pleaded for help. He and his friends took her to their table, where she told them that she had been beaten up by the respondents. Mr Peterson testified that she had blood on her lips and that her palms were red. When she complained that her side was hurting her, Mr Peterson and his friends decided that she was indeed in pain. He called the police, who came and summoned an ambulance, which took her to Tan Tock Seng Hospital where she was examined and warded for three days. Eventually she was found to have a minor head injury and the following fresh injuries:

(1) Small and superficial laceration of the right lower lip

(2) Bruises over the bilateral cheek area

(3) Multiple bruises over the left upper arm proximal and lateral aspect

(4) Group of bruises over bilateral thighs

(5) Small bruise over left thumb lateral aspect

(6) Complete fractures of the right 6th, 7th and 8th ribs - the bones were broken through and through and no longer in alignment

She was also found to have several injuries a few days old:

(7) Multiple small bruises over right chest area and right and abdomen

(8) Bruise over left dorso aspect of chest

The allegation against all three respondents which was the basis of the main charges was that, in the early evening of 18 June 1990, the family had converged upon the complainant in her room and assaulted her together, the husband and son kicking her body and the wife punching her face. The complainant said that she had lost consciousness for a while and thereafter had obeyed instructions to wash and change before accompanying the family out to dinner, as she usually did. She was unable to suggest a precipitating cause for this attack.

The main injuries suffered by the complainant were the fractures of her ribs, which formed the basis of the first charge against the husband. The respondents suggested to her that she might have broken her ribs falling from a stepladder around 3pm that afternoon, while cleaning an airconditioner. She denied that she had fallen from a stepladder that day, and said that she had in fact cleaned the airconditioners in the morning, as was her usual routine after mopping the floor. Other objective evidence went towards the cause of the complainant`s broken ribs. The evidence of the radiologists for both the prosecution and the defence was that the fractures were consistent both with an impact with a ladder as well as with a kick, even a barefoot kick, at the ribs. They were aligned and the distance between the 6th and 8th ribs, from end to end of the fractures, was about 41/2 inches. The 6th rib fracture had a maximum displacement of 1/2 inch. It was common ground that to cause these fractures, the force of impact had to be fairly great; if she hit part of the ladder, the government radiologist said she would have had to fall on it from a great height. The fractures were closed, ie the skin was unbroken. The radiologist who gave evidence for the defence testified that it was more unlikely that the fractures were caused by a kick because the shape of the foot was not congruous with the shape of the ribs there. Presumably this meant that a kick to that part of the ribs would have been less likely to cause fractures that were aligned. However, he also said that in order for such fractures to have been sustained by a fall from a ladder, the complainant would have had to have fallen in such a way that the three ribs landed upon a straight edge, either the step or the side of the ladder, that was vertical in relation to her body, not horizontal. He also said that the edge of an aluminium ladder was more likely to cause an open fracture than a kick, and that these particular fractures must have been very painful.

Upon hearing the prosecution`s medical evidence, the evidence of witnesses to the incident at Punggol Point Restaurant and the evidence of the complainant, the district judge called upon the respondents to enter upon their defence. They all elected to give evidence.

The defence

The respondents gave the following collective account. They had found the complainant an unsatisfactory employee. She had become unhappy and wanted to go home to the Philippines, but the husband had refused to buy her an air ticket as he was not contractually obliged to do so. It was suggested by counsel for the respondents in cross-examination that the complainant had been aggrieved by this; in short, that the complainant had broken her own ribs accidentally in falling from a stepladder while cleaning the airconditioners, or had had them broken by the son in an incident which I will describe later, had not sought medical attention and, in her vexation at the husband`s earlier refusal to send her home to the Philippines, used the chance opportunity presented by the occurrence of her untended injury to embarrass the respondents utterly by feigning desperation in...