Public Prosecutor v Chua Ai Lin
| Jurisdiction | Singapore |
| Judge | Toh Yung Cheong |
| Judgment Date | 23 April 2007 |
| Neutral Citation | [2007] SGDC 121 |
| Court | District Court (Singapore) |
| Year | 2007 |
| Published date | 16 May 2007 |
| Plaintiff Counsel | Robert Tan (Assistant Public Prosecutor) |
| Defendant Counsel | S. Skandarajah (Murthy & Co) |
| Citation | [2007] SGDC 121 |
| 23 April 2007 |
Judgment reserved. |
District Judge Toh Yung Cheong
1. The accused, Chua Ai Lin Jacqueline, was convicted after a trial on a charge under s.380 read with s.34. The charge averred that the accused, together with her maid May Gaon Macusi, stole a variety of items worth $885.50/- from Giant Hypermarket, IMM Building, on 19 June 2006.
2. As the accused has appealed against her conviction and sentence, I will now set out the reasons for my decision.
Outline
3. On 19 June 2006, Mr Nadarajan, a loss prevention officer with Giant Hypermarket located at the IMM Building, noticed the accused and her maid behaving suspiciously in the Hypermarket. He decided to keep an eye on them and observed the accused subsequently going to the cashier’s counter to pay for some items while her maid pushed a pram-load of unpaid items out of the Hypermarket without paying. Subsequently, the accused and her maid were stopped by staff of Giant Hypermarket and the case was referred to the police. In the police station, the accused gave a statement to Inspector Angela Ying in which she confessed to the offence.
4. During the trial, the defence claimed that the accused had merely forgotten to pay. In addition, the defence also alleged that the staff of Giant Hypermarket and the police officers at the scene had framed the accused by tampering or adding to the items allegedly stolen by her. As for the confession recorded by Inspector Ying, the accused claimed that she did not know what she was signing and that the statement was recorded under oppressive conditions.
Prosecution’s Case
Statements of the accused
5. Inspector Angela Ying (PW1, “Insp Ying”) was the Assistant Investigating Officer on duty in Clementi Police Division on 19 June 2006. At about 6.28pm, she was referred a case of shoplifting at Giant Hypermarket at the IMM Building. She obtained the first information report (exhibit P2) and on 20 June 2006, she recorded the following statements from the accused:
a) At 12.50am, she recorded a two page investigation statement (exhibit P3)
b) Immediately after that, at 1.25am, Inspector Ying began the procedures laid out in s.122 of the Criminal Procedure Code (“CPC”) and the accused wrote out a statement under the provisions of s.122(6) CPC (exhibit P4).
6. The voluntariness of both these statements were challenged by the defence and separate trial within a trials were held for each statement. As the statements were recorded one after the other and the allegations made were similar, I will deal with both statements together in analysing the issue of voluntariness.
Trial within a trial
Prosecution’s Case
7. In the trial within a trial, Insp Ying testified she did not threaten, induce or make any promises to the accused with respect to the charge. The accused did not complain to her about being in pain or that her breasts were engorged. There was also no request to her to be allowed to breastfeed her baby and Insp Ying disagreed with Counsel’s assertion that she refused to allow the accused to breastfeed her baby unless a statement was given[note: 1].
8. According to Insp Ying, she first began by recording an investigation statement between 12.50am to 1.20am which she then printed out for the accused to sign. Thereafter, Inspector Ying commenced the recording of a cautioned statement under s.122(6) CPC. She commenced by reading the charge and the various notices to the accused. Thereafter, she asked the accused if she had anything to say and the accused wrote down something onto the piece of paper. The cautioned statement was completed at 1.40am.
9. During cross-examination, Inspector Ying conceded that she had omitted to give a copy of the charge of the accused after the cautioned statement was recorded.
10. The next prosecution witness for the trial within a trial was Staff Sergeant Chua Ban Kheng (“SSgt Chua”). SSgt Chua is the current IO for the case. On 19 June 2006, he was not the IO yet. Instead, his involvement in this case was due to the fact that he was the duty Senior Investigation Officer at Clementi Police Station on 19 June 2006 and he saw the accused with her baby at 9pm in the Division charge room. The charge room is the area in the police station where accused persons are first processed. At this stage, their identity will be registered and the case property and their personal possessions will also be registered. Thereafter, they will be brought to the holding bay to wait and then to the lockup.
11. SSgt Chua testified that if an accused wished to breastfeed her baby that night, he would have to be consulted as he was the duty Senior Investigation Officer. According to SSgt Chua, he would allow breastfeeding but this could only take place outside the lockup as babies are not allowed inside the lockup[note: 2]. As duty SIO any complaints would have to be brought to his attention that night and there was no evidence that any such complaint was received.
Defence Case
12. The accused testified that on 19 June 2006, she was still breastfeeding her fourteen (14) month old daughter (“youngest daughter”). In fact, while she was at IMM that day, she breastfed her a total of ten (10) times at half hour intervals.[note: 3] After she was stopped by the store security personnel, she was allowed to breastfeed her youngest daughter as well.
13. At about 8.10pm, police officers arrived at Giant Hypermarket and arrangements were made for her relatives to take care of the children while the accused and her maid were brought back to the police station. At the police station, she was brought to the holding bay and handcuffed to a pole while some documentation was being processed. However, she was not allowed to be with her youngest daughter.
14. Subsequently, the accused was placed in the lockup. The accused claimed that she told a police constable that she needed to breastfeed her youngest daughter as her breasts were engorged. However, she was told that they need to wait for approval from the investigation officer. At about 12.20am, a female Malay police officer asked her whether she could express her milk into a bottle. The accused said she could not because her youngest daughter could only be fed from the breast. The officer told the accused that if she did not express the milk and then record a statement, she would not be allowed to go home[note: 4]. Nonetheless, the Malay officer told the accused that she would check with the IO.
15. About five minutes later, the female Malay officer returned and informed the accused that she could breastfeed her youngest daughter and brought her to a room for this purpose. While the accused was walking to the room, she was scolded by a Chinese lady who said “what have you done to your baby.” This caused the accused to become depressed and cry. The accused managed to breastfeed her youngest daughter for five minutes and thereafter the latter fell asleep. Thereafter, the accused handed the youngest daughter to the police officer and returned to the lockup.
16. Subsequently, she was brought out of the lockup by Inspector Ying to an interview room. The accused claimed that the room was too cold and that she was in pain and distress because of her engorged breasts. In addition, she told Inspector Ying that she needed to breastfeed her baby again. Inspector Ying informed the accused that she needed to take her statement and thereafter let the accused out on bail.
17. The accused claimed that she narrated a version of events to Inspector Ying which included her assertion that she had no intention to steal.[note: 5] The IO then read back the statement to the accused and the version that she read back was accurate[note: 6]. However, unbeknown to the accused at that time, Inspector Ying had typed out a completely different version. The accused did not read through the statement after it was printed out as she was only told by Inspector Ying to sign on the statement.
18. As for the cautioned statement, the accused claimed that she was in pain due to her engorged breasts when wrote out the statement. Nevertheless, she admitted that the charge and the purpose of the statement were explained to her and that she knew that the statement could be used in court[note: 7]. She also conceded that the IO did not tell her what to say in the cautioned statement.[note: 8] After the cautioned statement was signed, she claimed that Inspector Ying told her that she may be given a warning[note: 9].
My Decision On The Voluntariness Of The Statements
19. On the facts of the case, I did not find the existence of any threat, inducement or promise within the contemplation of s.121(5) CPC. In particular, I accepted Insp Ying’s evidence and rejected the allegation that Inspector Ying had issued a threat that unless the accused gave a statement, she would not allowed to see her youngest daughter. If Insp Ying had wanted to pressurise the accused into confessing by withholding access to her daughter, why was the accused was granted access to her 14-month old daughter half an hour before the statement was recorded?
20. Apart from the issue of threat, inducement or promise, I also had to consider whether the statement was extracted by oppression. This is due to the established caselaw which has held that oppression can render a statement involuntary and inadmissible. In Yen May Woen v PP
Nevertheless it is recognised that oppression can render a statement involuntary and inadmissible. In Chai Chien Wei Kelvin v PP
Oppression is a circumstance which may render a confession involuntary and thus inadmissible … In R v Priestley (1967) 51 Cr App R 1, Sachs LJ, as he then was, said:
[T]his word [oppression] … imports something which tends to sap, and has sapped, that free will which must exist before a confession is voluntary. … Whether or...
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