Public Prosecutor v Christeen d/o Jayamany and another

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Tay Yong Kwang J
• Judgment Date: 08 May 2015
• Neutral Citation: [2015] SGHC 126
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Criminal Case No 19 of 2015
• Published date: 21 May 2015
• Year: 2015
• Hearing Date: 01 April 2015,19 March 2015,31 March 2015,18 March 2015,24 March 2015,15 April 2015,26 March 2015,27 March 2015,17 March 2015,25 March 2015
• Plaintiff Counsel: Anandan Bala, Carene Poh and Nicole Evangeline Poh (Attorney-General's Chambers)
• Defendant Counsel: Sunil Sudheesan and Diana Ngiam (RHTLaw Taylor Wessing LLP),Thrumurgan s/o Ramapiram, Emmanuel Lee (Trident Law Corporation) and Kalidass s/o Murugaiyan (HOH Law Corporation)
• Subject Matter: Criminal Law,Statutory offences,Misuse of Drugs Act
• Citation: [2015] SGHC 126

Tay Yong Kwang J:

The two accused persons, Christeen d/o Jayamany (“Christeen”) and Datchinamurthy a/l Kataiah (“Datchinamurthy”), were tried and convicted on the respective charges:

That you, 1. CHRISTEEN D/O JAYAMANY,

on 18 January 2011, at or about 9.05 a.m., along Depot Close, Singapore, did traffic in a controlled drug specified in Class A of the First Schedule to the Misuse of Drugs Act, Chapter 185, to wit, by having in your possession for the purpose of trafficking, five (5) packets of granular/powdery substances, which were analyzed and found to contain not less than 44.96 grams of diamorphine, without any authorization under the said Act or the Regulations made thereunder, and you have thereby committed an offence under section 5(1)(a) of the Misuse of Drugs Act, Chapter 185, read with section 5(2) of the Misuse of Drugs Act, Chapter 185, which is punishable under section 33 of the Misuse of Drugs Act, Chapter 185, or you may alternatively be liable to be punished under section 33B of the Misuse of Drugs Act, Chapter 185.

That you, 2. DATCHINAMURTHY A/L KATAIAH,

on 18 January 2011, at or about 9.05 a.m., along Depot Close, Singapore, did traffic in a controlled drug specified in Class A of the First Schedule to the Misuse of Drugs Act, Chapter 185, to wit, by giving to one Christeen D/O Jayamany (NRIC No.: [xxx]) five (5) packets of granular/powdery substances, which were analyzed and found to contain not less than 44.96 grams of diamorphine, without any authorization under the said Act or the Regulations made thereunder, and you have thereby committed an offence under section 5(1)(a) of the Misuse of Drugs Act, Chapter 185, which punishable under section 33 of the Misuse of Drugs Act, Chapter 185, or you may alternatively be liable to be punished under section 33B of the Misuse of Drugs Act, Chapter 185.

The Prosecution’s case

Both accused persons were arrested on 18 January 2011 along Depot Close, Singapore, by Central Narcotics Bureau (“CNB”) officers as part of a drug operation.

On 18 January 2011, Datchinamurthy entered Singapore via the Woodlands Checkpoint at 5.35am on his motorcycle bearing the registration plate number JMN 8716.¹ He then travelled to a fruit stall at Woodlands Central where he met an unknown Indian man. Datchinamurthy told the said Indian man that he was supposed to deliver five packets of drugs for a person known to him as “Rajah”.² That Indian man replied that there were two packets in a red plastic bag in the front basket of a motorcycle bearing the registration plate number JJS 2021 (“JJS 2021”) while three more packets were stuffed under its seat. JJS 2021 was Datchinamurthy’s old motorcycle, which Rajah had modified to conceal the packets of drugs.³ Datchinamurthy retrieved the three packets of drugs from under the motorcycle seat and placed them together with the other two packets in the red plastic bag.⁴ He then contacted Christeen and arranged to meet her at Depot Close to pass her the five packets of drugs.⁵

At about 9.05am, Datchinamurthy was seen on JJS 2021 along Depot Close facing the direction of Depot Road.⁶ Christeen alighted from a taxi along Depot Road and was later seen turning into Depot Close.⁷ Christeen met Datchinamurthy along Depot Close where she passed a brown sling bag (“the Sling Bag”) to him. Datchinamurthy placed something red into the Sling Bag and returned the Sling Bag with its contents to Christeen.⁸ Both of them then parted ways. Datchinamurthy rode off on JJS 2021 in the direction of Depot Road and stopped at the traffic junction of Depot Close and Depot Road.⁹ Christeen walked slowly towards the same traffic junction with the Sling Bag slung over her left shoulder.¹⁰

CNB officers then engaged Datchinamurthy at the said traffic junction. He fell onto the grass verge of Depot Close and was arrested.¹¹ Almost simultaneously, SSgt Bukhari bin Ahmad arrested Christeen. He alighted from his vehicle and approached Christeen from behind and on her right. He held her right wrist, handcuffed it, brought it behind her back and then handcuffed her left wrist.¹² While Christeen was being arrested, the Sling Bag slid down her arm to her left elbow region and SSgt Bukhari saw a red plastic bag inside the Sling Bag.¹³ SSgt Bukhari then handed her over to WSSSgt Jenny Woo Yoke Chun (“WSSSgt Jenny”) and WSSgt Norizan binte Merabzul (“WSSgt Norizan”).¹⁴ Both of them observed that the Sling Bag was slung over Christeen’s left wrist, above her handcuffs.¹⁵ WSSgt Norizan then escorted Christeen into a CNB vehicle. As Christeen sat down, WSSgt Norizan brought the Sling Bag from behind Christeen’s back onto Christeen’s lap without removing the handcuffs.¹⁶ Both WSSgt Norizan and WSSSgt Jenny noticed a tied-up red plastic bag inside the Sling Bag.¹⁷

Subsequently, CNB officers seized Christeen’s and Datchinamurthy’s belongings, including the Sling Bag. The tied-up red plastic bag inside it contained five transparent packets of brown granular substance. This substance was later analysed and found to contain not less than 44.96 grams of diamorphine in total.¹⁸ This amount of diamorphine formed the subject of the respective charges. In addition, WSSSgt Jenny found Christeen’s Sony Ericsson handphone and earpiece in the front right pocket of her bermudas.¹⁹

The Prosecution tendered evidence from a total of 43 witnesses as well as phone records and police statements. A contemporaneous statement from Datchinamurthy, recorded by SSI Tony Ng and interpreted by SSgt Ravichandran s/o Ramu, was admitted into evidence unchallenged. Over the course of investigations, the Investigating Officer, ASP Deng Kaile (“the IO”), with the help of an interpreter, P Manickam, recorded from each accused person one statement pursuant to s 23 of the Criminal Procedure Code (Act 15 of 2010) (“CPC 2010”) and a series of statements pursuant to s 22 of the CPC 2010. These were also admitted, although parts of Christeen’s second and third s 22 statements were redacted.

Christeen admitted in her s 23 statement that Datchinamurthy had passed her the Sling Bag containing the red plastic bag in the morning of 18 January 2011. She also said that she had collected “a packet” from Datchinamurthy the week before and had delivered it. Datchinamurthy had paid her $200. What was absent, however, was her subsequent claim that she had called Datchinamurthy intending to return the Sling Bag to him after seeing the brown rock-like substance in the packets. In Christeen’s s 22 statements, she admitted that she had met Datchinamurthy once prior to 18 January 2011 and had taken four packets of drugs from him on that occasion. She provided a detailed account of how she distributed the drugs and collected money pursuant to Datchinamurthy’s instructions. On that occasion, he called her after passing the Sling Bag to her. She then went home to await instructions regarding the persons to whom she was to deliver the packets, where to meet the recipients and what to collect from them in return. Upon his instructions, she passed the four packets to four different sets of recipients—one Malay male, two Chinese males, one Indian male and another Malay male. Regarding the transaction on 18 January 2011, she admitted that she had received the Sling Bag from Datchinamurthy.

In Datchinamurthy’s contemporaneous statement, he admitted that he knew that the packets contained “drugs”. When questioned as to the nature of the drugs, he stated that he did not know. He stated in his s 23 statement that he committed this offence because of family and financial hardship and debt problems. He said that this was why “I had taken the risk to lose my life”. In his s 22 statements, he stated that he had approached Rajah to take up Rajah’s earlier offer to deliver drugs within Singapore because he needed money. He also stated that he knew Christeen and had met her on one prior occasion in January 2011 where he passed two packets of drugs to her. He stated that his role was simply that of a middleman between Rajah and Christeen. He stated that although he suspected that the drug in question was heroin (a street name for diamorphine), he did not enquire as to whether it was truly heroin.

The defence

Both accused persons elected to give oral testimony in their own defence. No other defence witness was called.

Christeen’s defence

Christeen’s defence, in essence, was that she did not know that the five packets contained drugs and that she did not know the nature of the drugs (ie, that they were diamorphine).

Christeen was unemployed and in financial difficulty. As she needed money to support her children, she accepted a job offer to receive and deliver a bag. The offer was first communicated to her by a person known to her as “Land”.²⁰ She had been introduced to Land by Thiru, a family friend.²¹ Land had heard of Christeen’s plight and told her that his friend would provide her with the details of the job and the person to whom she was to pass the bag. Later, Datchinamurthy contacted Christeen and told her that Land had spoken about her. He briefed her about the job. In particular, he said that he would pass her a bag which she was to pass to a person to be specified by him and that person would give her an envelope which she was to pass back to him upon his request. If she did this, Datchinamurthy would give her $200.²²

Christeen received packets from Datchinamurthy and delivered them on at least one occasion in the week prior to 18 January 2011.²³ After receiving the Sling Bag containing four packets from Datchinamurthy, she brought the Sling Bag home and waited for him to tell her to whom the packets should be delivered to. According to her, the packets she had received were wrapped in newspaper, secured by scotch tape and were heavy.²⁴ She thought that they contained “valuable” things.²⁵ Datchinamurthy instructed Christeen to distribute those packets to certain individuals and...