Public Prosecutor v Govindarajan s/o Thiruvengadam Uthirapathy

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Vincent Hoong JC
• Judgment Date: 25 November 2019
• Neutral Citation: [2019] SGHC 273
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Criminal Case No 48 of 2019
• Year: 2019
• Published date: 27 November 2019
• Hearing Date: 25 November 2019
• Plaintiff Counsel: Wong Woon Kwong and Kong Kuek Foo (Attorney-General's Chambers)
• Defendant Counsel: Raphael Louis (Ray Louis Law Corporation)
• Subject Matter: Criminal Procedure and Sentencing,Sentencing,Attempt to commit culpable homicide with hurt caused
• Citation: [2019] SGHC 273

Vincent Hoong JC (delivering the judgment of the court ex tempore):

The accused person has pleaded guilty to a charge of attempted culpable homicide with hurt caused under s 308 of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed).

Having heard the parties’ submissions, I sentence the accused person to three years’ and three months’ imprisonment to commence from the date of his remand.

The Prosecution has proposed a sentencing framework for the offence. With respect, I do not think that this is an appropriate case to set out a sentencing framework. There are insufficient precedents to demonstrate why the proposed bands are appropriate. As the Prosecution has noted, the nature of this offence is fact-intensive. This is borne out by the cases cited which show that they vary greatly in their factual matrix. I therefore prefer the approach applied by the Court of Appeal in Public Prosecutor v Kwong Kok Hing [2008] 2 SLR(R) 684 (“Kwong Kok Hing”), where the court stated at [33] that “[i]n arriving at an appropriate sentence, a court should almost invariably consider the relevance of the sentencing considerations of deterrence, retribution, prevention and rehabilitation”.

In the present case, the accused person decided to kill his wife. He went into the kitchen to retrieve a plastic bag. Without any warning, he then approached her from behind, and proceeded to suffocate her with the plastic bag. He only stopped choking the victim when he realised that she had involuntarily urinated herself and lost consciousness. He observed that she was breathing and tried to rouse her to no avail. He then proceeded to help himself to the victim’s properties, and left the flat without checking on her health. In his medical report, Dr Paul Chui, a senior consultant forensic pathologist with the Health Sciences Authority, opined that the accused person would have suffocated the victim with the plastic bag for between 15 seconds and 3 minutes.¹

I agree with the Prosecution that it was only fortuitous that the victim escaped death. The accused person’s conduct after the offence was also callous. He exhibited a blatant disregard for the victim’s well-being: after pawning away the victim’s jewellery, he then made purchases for the woman with whom he was having an affair. He then decided to leave Singapore, but was thwarted when he was arrested at the checkpoint.

In the circumstances, I agree that general deterrence and specific deterrence are relevant sentencing considerations in the present case. The law should not condone violence as a solution to problems, in particular when severe consequences such as the victim’s death may result. Specific deterrence is also necessary to remind the accused person that the use of extreme violence out of anger and vengeance will not be condoned. Furthermore, retributive justice should be given some weight, given that the accused person’s assault threatened the victim’s life. It was entirely fortunate that the victim survived the ordeal. The...