Public Prosecutor v Dahalan bin Ladaewa

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: S Rajendran J
• Judgment Date: 12 May 1995
• Neutral Citation: [1995] SGHC 126
• Citation: [1995] SGHC 126
• Date: 12 May 1995
• Year: 1995
• Subject Matter: Whether a ground to exercise such discretion,Failure to provide interpreter,Criminal Procedure and Sentencing,Failure to comply with Police General Orders in recording statements in note books,Statutory offences,Defence of personal consumption,Trafficking in controlled drugs,Evidence that accused was chronic intravenous abuser,Oral statements,Statements,Admissibility,Misuse of Drugs Act,s 17(c) Misuse of Drugs Act (Cap 185),Method of assessing portion meant for personal consumption,Whether statutory presumption rebutted,Whether court had discretion to reject statements not obtained as a result of inducements, threats and promises,s 122(5) Criminal Procedure Code (Cap 68),Criminal Law
• Docket Number: Criminal Case No 12 of 1995
• Defendant Counsel: Lim Choon Mong (Lim & Lim) (assigned) and A Rajandran (Lee Rajandran & Joseph) (assigned),Lim Yew Jin, Malcolm Tan and Navarani Navaratnasingam (Deputy Public Prosecutors)
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Published date: 19 September 2003

The accused and one Sanusi bin Shariff (Sanusi) were arrested at 10.40am on 6 July 1994 at the Karachi Restaurant in Changi Road as a result of a routine check by Cpl B Rajandran and two other police officers from Geylang Police Station. Cpl Rajandran testified that both the accused and Sanusi appeared to him to be drug addicts. He told the court that the accused`s face was pale and his gait was unsteady. After obtaining their particulars he checked with the operations room and ascertained that the accused was wanted for failing to report for a urine test. He arrested both of them and took them to Geylang Police Station.

A short while after arrival at Geylang Police Station, Cpl Rajandran was informed of a telephone call from the owner of Karachi Restaurant that a bag belonging to one of the two Malays was still at the restaurant. Cpl Rajandran returned to Karachi Restaurant and recovered a grey clutch bag from the table at which he had earlier seen the accused. Cpl Rajandran told the court that he had in fact seen the accused holding this clutch bag when he first saw the accused but had overlooked the clutch bag at the time of the arrest.

Back in his patrol car Cpl Rajandran opened the clutch bag and saw therein a yellow envelope and a handphone. In the envelope there were several sachets of granular substance that he suspected to be heroin. At the station Cpl Rajandran examined the contents of the clutch bag more thoroughly. He mentioned that when he took the sachets out from the envelope some paper clips dropped out. When asked for details he said that when he emptied the clutch bag `paper clips, scraps, small pieces of paper fell out`. Cpl Rajandran said that he did not bother to pick these up.

Cpl Rajandran then proceeded, with the clutch bag and its contents, to the lock-up where, in the presence of the accused, he counted the 24 sachets of powder that were in the yellow envelope. He then reported the recovery of the clutch bag containing the 24 sachets and the arrest of the accused and Sanusi to Sgt Lai Thong Fock (Sgt Lai). Sgt Lai relayed this information to ASP Lim Chei Yoo (ASP Lim) of the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) and asked if CNB would want to take over the case. He was told to interview the two persons first. It appeared from the evidence of Sgt Lai that CNB would take over the case only if the accused was trafficking in the 24 sachets.

In compliance with the direction of ASP Lim, Sgt Lai interviewed the accused from 2.15pm to 2.30pm that day and interviewed Sanusi immediately thereafter. Later at about 6.20pm just before leaving office he noted what the accused told him in his pocket book. The prosecution sought to adduce in evidence the conversation between the accused and Sgt Lai and the extract from the pocket book. The defence objected to this conversation or the extract from the pocket book being admitted in evidence and a trial-within-a-trial was held to determine admissibility.

Before the commencement of the trial-within-a-trial Sanusi was called to testify for the prosecution. All that the prosecution sought to adduce from Sanusi was that the clutch bag belonged to the accused and Sanusi did not know that there was heroin therein. The defence, however, sought to adduce evidence from Sanusi that he and the accused had been consuming heroin together at the Pasir Ris site.

It was obvious when defence counsel began questioning Sanusi that Sanusi was a very frightened man. He claimed to have known the accused for only one or two months prior to arrest. Sanusi, however, agreed that at a construction site at Pasir Ris he and the accused had consumed heroin together. He denied that he worked at that site and said that he did not know if the accused worked there. He also denied having been arrested for drug activities at any time prior to 6 July 1994. As the questioning progressed it became progressively more apparent that Sanusi was very uneasy about answering questions. He was on several occasions not even speaking out his answers. Counsel for the defence pointed out that at the preliminary inquiry Sanusi, when questioned, had denied knowing the accused at all. When I asked Sanusi to speak up Sanusi claimed that he had a sore throat. At that stage I decided that it would be best that the cross-examination of Sanusi be stood down until a later date.

First trial-within-a-trial

Sgt Lai told the court that he interviewed the accused in English. He said that the accused could understand English and so he did not ask the accused whether he wished to speak in Malay. Before interviewing the accused he laid out the 24 sachets on the table in front of the accused and counted the 24 sachets. He then questioned the accused. Sgt Lai said that he jotted down what the accused said in note form on a piece of paper. At about 6.20pm that evening just before he left the station, Sgt Lai wrote out in his pocket book an expanded account of what he had noted on the paper. He then destroyed the piece of paper. At that time he also recorded on his pocket book other events that had taken place in the day such as what Cpl Rajandran told him about the arrest, his telephone call to ASP Lim and his interview with Sanusi. He agreed with counsel that he was in a hurry when he made the entries in his pocket book as he had to take a bus and get to a management class scheduled to begin at 7pm at Paterson Road.

Sgt Lai agreed that the assignment by ASP Lim to interview the accused was an important assignment. He was aware that if the accused was trafficking in the heroin the accused would face the death penalty. When asked why, in spite of this knowledge, he did not record a proper statement from the accused, have it read back to the accused and get the accused to sign it or at least have his pocket book with him and note what the accused said in the pocket book, Sgt Lai responded that as he was in the vicinity just prior to the interview and he did not take the trouble to go up to his office and take his pocket book. Sgt Lai told the court that as a plainclothes officer he was not expected to carry his pocket book with him and it was his practice to leave his pocket book in the drawer in his office and make entries therein only when he was free.

I found it difficult to believe Sgt Lai`s claims as to how pocket books were to be entered. It might be acceptable not to take notes at all or to jot notes on a piece of paper where an officer was on surveillance duty but to suggest that it was accepted practice, in the context of a formal interview with an accused person, to make notes on a piece of paper and then destroy the notes after transcribing the contents into his pocket book was an assertion that I found very surprising. If that was so, it would defeat the whole purpose of having pocket books. I therefore asked the learned DPP to produce in court the directions, if any, issued by the Police Force in respect of the maintenance of pocket books. Through Sgt Lai, the Police General Orders (PGO) on the subject was produced. What the PGO said was quite contrary to the claim made by Sgt Lai.

The PGO made it obligatory for police officers (uniformed or not) to keep pocket books with them at all times and it contained very clear and eminently sensible directions on how pocket books were to be maintained. It was provided for instance, in O 4, that entries `shall be made in the pocket book whenever possible at the time of occurrence`. An officer in plainclothes in order to prevent disclosure of his identity was permitted under O 4 to make notes on a piece of paper but such notes had to be copied into the pocket book as soon as possible and the original retained as an exhibit in case of need. Order 6 provided that entries should be clearly written in indelible ink, that entries should be recorded chronologically on serially numbered pages, that no erasures should be made, that if any correction was to be made the erroneous entry was to be crossed out in such a way that it was still legible, that there should be no space left blank between entries and leaves should not, for any purpose, be torn out of pocket books. Order 6 also stated that to ensure reliability of the pocket book the provisions therein should be `strictly complied with`. Order 7 provided that where occurrences recorded in pocket books were likely to become the subject of legal proceedings they should be recorded in the fullest possible detail including `actual words of relevant statements`. To ensure that police officers kept their pocket books properly, it was even provided that pocket books were to be checked weekly by supervising officers and it was provided (in O 8) that where a pocket book is used to record a statement, the statement shall be recorded in compliance with s 121(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC).

When confronted with the provisions of the PGO and asked if he knew of those provisions, Sgt Lai admitted that he did. When asked why he had not followed them, Sgt Lai claimed that he had forgotten about them.

Sgt Lai told the court that when he interviewed the accused, the accused looked normal and, except for looking tired, did not appear to be suffering from drug withdrawal. It would appear, however, that Sgt Lai knew that the accused was in fact a drug addict. In the extract from the pocket book that the prosecution was seeking to admit in evidence Sgt Lai had noted that, at 11.30am that morning, Cpl Rajandran had informed him that the accused was arrested for the possession of 24 sachets of heroin, for suspicion of consuming drugs and for failing to report for urine test.

Sgt Lai agreed that in drug withdrawal there were a number of symptoms like chill, vomiting and diarrhoea that would not be apparent to him when he interviewed the accused. He agreed that he did not ask the accused if he was all right. He said that as the accused appeared normal it did not occur to him that it would be preferable to send the accused for a medical...