Public Prosecutor v Dewi Sukowati

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Foo Chee Hock JC
• Judgment Date: 16 September 2016
• Neutral Citation: [2016] SGHC 152
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Hearing Date: 31 May 2016
• Docket Number: Criminal Case No 65 of 2015
• Plaintiff Counsel: Chee Min Ping and James Low (Attorney-General's Chambers)
• Defendant Counsel: Mohamed Muzammil bin Mohamed (Muzammil & Company)
• Subject Matter: Criminal Procedure,Sentencing
• Published date: 26 January 2017

Foo Chee Hock JC:

The accused pleaded guilty to one charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under s 304(a) of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed). The charge read as follows:

That you, DEWI SUKOWATI,

on the 19th day of March 2014, at about 7.30 a.m., at 43 Victoria Park Road, Singapore, did cause the death of one Nancy Gan Wan Geok, female/69 years old, with the intention of causing death, to wit, by hitting the back of the said Nancy Gan Wan Geok’s head forcefully against a wall, hitting the said Nancy Gan Wan Geok’s head forcefully against the edge of a step, and then flipping the said Nancy Gan Wan Geok face down into a swimming pool after, and you have thereby committed an offence of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, an offence punishable section 304(a) of the Penal Code, Chapter 224 (2008 Rev. Ed.).

The accused admitted the Statement of Facts (“SOF”) without qualification. The narrative following ([3] to [13]) is extracted with minor amendments from the SOF.

On 19 March 2014, the sixth day of the accused’s employment (with the deceased), at about 5.30 am, the accused woke up and began her daily chores. Two hours later, at about 7.30 am, the deceased woke up and rang the call bell, which the accused understood to be a signal for her to bring a glass of water to the deceased’s bedroom.

The accused brought a glass of warm water on a tray to the deceased’s bedroom, and knocked on the door. The deceased opened the bedroom door, and began to scold the accused in Bahasa Indonesia, “Salah lagi, salah lagi, dasar gadis bodoh, apa pun tak tahu”, which means “wrong again, wrong again, very stupid girl, don’t know anything” in English. The accused had delivered the glass of water on the wrong type of tray, despite the deceased’s specific instructions previously.

The deceased then splashed the water in the glass onto the accused’s face and threw the tray onto the floor. The accused squatted down and proceeded to pick up the tray. However, the deceased snatched the tray from the accused’s hand and hit the left rear side of the accused’s head with the base of the tray. The accused was still in a squatting position and the deceased was bending over in front of her. The deceased continued scolding the accused, saying in Bahasa Indonesia, “Sudah saya bilang lupa lagi salah lagi, kalu kayak gini saya potong gaji kamu jadi dua ratus”, which means in English “I’ve already told you, you forget again, you make mistakes again, I will cut your salary until it becomes S$200/-”.

At this point, the accused lost control of herself and suddenly grabbed hold of the deceased’s hair with both the accused’s hands and swung the deceased’s head against the wall on her right with all the strength that the accused had. The accused had intended for the front of the deceased’s head to hit the wall. However, the deceased resisted and the back of her head hit the wall instead. As a result of the blow against the wall, the deceased collapsed, unconscious and bleeding profusely from the back of her head. The deceased lay face down on the floor, with her left arm bent near her head, her right arm stretched to the back and both legs straight out.

The accused was frightened. Initially, she did not know whether the deceased was alive or merely unconscious. Confused, she stood up and squatted down a few times, thinking about what she had done. After about ten minutes, the accused flipped the deceased’s body over to a supine position, so that she could check if the deceased was still breathing. The accused could not see whether the deceased was breathing, and placed her right ear on the deceased’s chest. The accused could hear the deceased’s heart beating weakly.

The accused was worried that if the deceased woke up and called the police, she would be arrested. She then decided to place the deceased’s body in the swimming pool of the house so the deceased would drown and not be able to call the police.

Pursuant to her plan, the accused dragged the deceased’s supine body by the hair with both her hands towards the swimming pool. The accused reached a ceramic-tiled step on the accused’s way to the swimming pool. The accused recalled the deceased’s daily scolding and criticism and became angry again. The accused grabbed the deceased’s hair and slammed the back of the deceased’s head against the edge of the step. Even more blood flowed out from the back of the deceased’s head.

The accused continued to drag the deceased’s body towards the swimming pool. Along the way, there were a few more steps and the accused grabbed the deceased by her pyjamas and dragged the deceased’s body down the steps. The deceased’s head and body hit against the steps multiple times in the process.

When the accused eventually arrived at the swimming pool, the accused arranged the deceased’s body parallel to the edge of the swimming pool before flipping the deceased face down into the swimming pool. The accused then returned to the deceased’s room to retrieve the deceased’s sandals, and threw the said sandals into the swimming pool to give the impression that the deceased had committed suicide by drowning herself in the swimming pool.

The accused returned to the interior of the house, and cleaned up the blood trail from the deceased’s bedroom to the swimming pool by mopping the floor multiple times. She used a cloth to wipe away the blood stains on the wall where she had initially swung the deceased’s head against. She also threw away every blood-stained item that she saw in the house. The accused changed into a new set of clothes as the clothes that she was wearing had become stained with the deceased’s blood. The accused soaked her blood-stained clothing in a pail in her room’s toilet to get rid of the blood stains.

After the accused thought that she had cleaned up all traces of blood, she left the house and rang the doorbell of her neighbour’s house. However, before the neighbour could answer the door, a despatch rider, one Mohammad Hasri bin Abdul Hamid (“Mohammad Hasri”), rode past. The accused told him in English, “Help me, my employer is in the swimming pool.” The both of them then proceeded to the pool and Mohammad Hasri called the police.

The accused was remanded for psychiatric evaluation from 20 March 2014 to 10 April 2014 (para 26 of SOF). She was examined by Dr Kenneth Koh, Psychiatrist and Senior Consultant, Department of General and Forensic Psychiatry in the Institute of Mental Health, who found her to be “attentive and organized in her accounts” and there “were no psychotic features and her mood was not overtly depressed” (9 May 2014 report).

Dr Koh certified in his report dated 1 April 2015 that “at the moment of the offence” the accused was suffering from “an Acute Stress Reaction”. The point that came through plainly from Dr Koh’s reports was that the combination of this “disease of the mind” (1 April 2015 report) and the “socio-cultural factors” (1 April 2015 report referring to his 9 May 2014 and 22 January 2015 reports) led to the substantial impairment of “the accused’s mental responsibility” for her offence (1 April 2015 report).

The “socio-cultural factors” were neatly set out in Dr Koh’s 22 January 2015 report (see also his 9 May 2014 report) and summed up in para 3 of the report (at p 1):

The combination of her very young age, her lack of exposure and sudden dispatch to a vastly different culture, the lack of proper training in how to cope with the vicissitudes of work, her past history of abuse and therefore enhanced sensitivity to further (alleged) abuse at the hands of a perfectionistic employer, interacted with the suddenness of the assault on a vital part of her person and conceivably caused her to have reacted instantaneously without heed of the consequences.

The report concluded (at p 2) that her “abnormality of mind at the material time would have caused her to be significantly impaired in her judgement and impulse control and therefore her mental responsibility for her actions, in a situation where she was (allegedly) acutely and severely provoked with insult and injury to her person”. As for the accused’s present condition, on the basis that the accused had not commenced on any psychiatric medication, it would appear that “she is free from any mental disorder currently” and “has a good prognosis from a psychiatric viewpoint” (Dr Koh’s 14 May 2015 report).

At the end of the hearing, I sentenced the accused to an imprisonment term of 18 years, with effect from 19 March 2014, the date of her arrest. The accused has now appealed against the sentence imposed, presumably on the ground that it is manifestly excessive (s 377(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cap 68, 2012 Rev Ed) (“CPC”)).

Before I detail my reasons for imposing the above sentence, it should be noted that the defence had sought to adduce an affidavit of one Nurul Putri Mildanti (“Nurul”). Nurul was formerly a domestic helper for the deceased and in her affidavit, she averred that she was subjected to verbal and physical abuse by the deceased while she was in the deceased’s employ. Nurul returned to Indonesia in March 2014. I decided that this affidavit was inadmissible on the basis that it was irregular and irrelevant (see Transcript, Day 1, p 48, lines 3 to 16). It was irregular because it did not comply with s 262 of the CPC.

Quite apart from the fact that the deceased had no opportunity to reply to what had been alleged, the prosecution was also not able to cross-examine Nurul or otherwise test the veracity of the contents of her affidavit.

More importantly, the affidavit was irrelevant. I took the view that this affidavit did not add anything to the relevant facts for sentencing since the SOF had already set out the circumstances leading to the commission of the offence and specifically included the acts of the deceased which precipitated the accused’s actions. I was also of...