Public Prosecutor v Iskandar bin Ab Rahim

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Wong Choon Ning
• Judgment Date: 23 January 2009
• Neutral Citation: [2009] SGDC 28
• Court: District Court (Singapore)
• Published date: 21 July 2009
• Citation: [2009] SGDC 28
• Plaintiff Counsel: DPP Ng Cheng Thiam
• Defendant Counsel: John Abraham (John Abraham) and Gloria James (Hoh Law Corporation)
• Year: 2009

23 January 2009 Judgment reserved.

District Judge Wong Choon Ning:

1 The accused was convicted after a trial on the following amended charge:-

DAC 53832/2006 (Exh. P1A)

“You,
NAME :ISKANDAR BIN AB RAHAM,
MALE : 31 YRS
NRIC NO :S7512832-J

are charged that you, on or about the 3^rd day of April, 2005 at or about 3.50 a.m., along River Valley Close, Singapore, whilst inside a motor vehicle registration number SDK 7051 B, did use criminal force to one N, Female, intending to outrage the modesty of the said N, to wit, by kissing her mouth and inserting your tongue inside her mouth and pulling down her jeans and rubbing your penis against her vulva and ejaculated on her panties and in order to commit this offence, you voluntarily caused wrongful restraint to the said N to restrain her from moving away and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 354A(1) of the Penal Code, Chapter 224.”

2 At the conclusion of the trial, the accused further pleaded guilty to the following two charges :-

DAC 53833/2006 (Exh. P36A)

“You,
NAME :ISKANDAR BIN AB RAHAM,
MALE 31 YRS
NRIC NO : S7512832-J

are charged that you, on the 7^th day of July 2006 at or about 2.30 a.m., along Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1, Singapore, whilst inside a motor car, did use criminal force on one P, intending to outrage her modesty, to wit, by kissing her on her mouth, and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 354 of the Penal Code, Chapter 224.”

DAC 52965/2006 (Exh. P35A)

“You,
ISKANDAR BIN AB RAHIM, M/31 YRS OLD
NRIC NO. : S7512832J
DATE OF BIRTH : 05-05-1975
NATIONALITY : SINGAPOREAN

are charged that you, on the 16^th day of November 2006 at or about 6:00 am, inside vehicle SGL 6930 E which had stopped along Orchard Road, just beyond Oldham Lane, Singapore, did commit theft of the following items:

a) One cashcard with serial XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX valued at $45.00

b) One Rolex Yacht-Master mid-size watch valued at $11,565

with a total value of $11,610 in the possession of one Ong Tat Beng, and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 379 of the Penal Code, Chapter 224.”

3 The accused also admitted to the following two charges and consented to have them taken into consideration for the purpose of sentencing :-

MAC 303/2006 (Exh. P37)

“You,
ISKANDAR BIN AB RAHIM, M/31 YRS
NRIC : S 7512832-J

are charged that you on or about the 17^th day of September 2006, at or about 3.00 am, outside Zouk, Singapore, did pretend to hold the office of Central Narcotics Bureau, as a public servant when you knew you did not hold such office, and in such assumed character did demand to check one Q for drugs, under colour of such office, and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 170 of the Penal Code, Chapter 224.”

MAC 304/2006 (Exh. P38A)

“You,
ISKANDAR BIN AB RAHIM, M/31 YRS
NRIC : S 7512832-J

are charged that you on the 17^th day of September 2006, at or about 3.00 am, inside a dark colour car which was parked along the main road outside Central Narcotics Bureau at Police Cantonment Complex, Singapore, intending to insult the modesty of one Q, did utter words to her, to wit, to remove all her clothings so as to check her for drugs, intending that such words shall be heard by the said Q, and which she did comply, and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 509 Chapter 224.”

4 After hearing the various mitigation pleas made by the defence and the prosecution’s address on sentence and, in consideration of the facts and circumstances of the case, I sentenced the accused to eight years’ preventive detention. For the charge under Section 354A of the Penal Code (DAC 53832/2006) (P1A), I further imposed nine strokes of the cane.

5 The defence is dissatisfied with the order of sentence and now appeals against it. The accused is presently serving sentence.

Facts Relating to DAC 53832/2006

6 As the appeal is against sentence only, I would confine myself to a narration of the facts of the case established in the trial which are essential to explain the sentences imposed for the charges under Sections 354A, 354 and 379 of the Penal Code.

7 On the night of 2 Apr 2005, sometime between 11 plus pm and 12 midnight plus, the victim, N, arrived at Moloko Club which was located beside Gallery Hotel. N, an eighteen-year-old student, was then having a night out with her friend, one R. The two girls had earlier spent some time at Zouk before proceeding to Moloko Club to join their friends.

8 At Moloko Club, after finishing three glasses of whisky, N went to the dance floor. Minutes later, she became unconscious and laid on the floor. Her friends helped her up from the floor and brought her outside the club. N was unable to walk on her own and had to be carried by her friends to a couch just outside Moloko Club, where she remained in a drunken, unconscious state. Her friends tried to talk to her but there was no response from her. Even when her friends shook her by the shoulders, she could not be awakened. Subsequently, one of her friends brought a cup of water to her. N could not drink it. When her friends tried to feed her the water, she started to vomit even though her eyes remained closed. In the end, N who was then leaning against R, fell forward and landed on her own vomit.

9 One by one, N’s friends started to go back into the club until eventually N was left in the care of only two young men, namely, S and H. S was a friend of N’s who had specially gone to Moloko Club when he learnt of her drunken state. H, on the other hand, had only met N for the first time on that night. In fact, he was introduced by his junior college friend to N, outside Moloko Club, when the latter was already drunk and unconscious.

10 After a short while, S needed to go to the toilet and he hence left N in H’s care. While S was away, N who was then leaning on H started to throw up again and the vomit ended up on her jeans. At this point of time, a man with a dark complexion (whom I found to be the accused) approached H and represented himself to be N’s friend. He suggested to H to get some tissue paper from the toilet in order to wipe the vomit off N’s jeans, and offered to look after N while H was away.

11 Earlier, H had noticed the accused loitering near N’s group of friends outside Moloko Club.[note: 1] Later, when only H and S were left with N, the accused had continued to hover near them, about five to ten metres away.[note: 2] As such, H naively assumed that the accused must be a friend from N’s group to whom his junior college friend had forgotten to introduce him. H hence entrusted N in the accused’s care, and left for the toilet.

12 On the way to the toilet, along the corridor, H met S and informed him that he had left N with a friend. Upon hearing this, S promptly headed back towards the couch outside Moloko Club but N and the accused could no longer be found. Shortly later, H rejoined S and learnt of N’s disappearance. The interval from the time H left N with the accused to the time when he discovered that they were both missing was only about one to two minutes.[note: 3] The accused had clearly taken N away from the club almost immediately after H had left N alone with him.

13 The evidence adduced during the trial showed that, as the accused brought N away from the club to his car which was parked at the back of the building, he was spotted at different times by two members of public. One Muhammad Shairul Nizam bin Abdul Latif (hereinafter referred to as “Shairul”) spotted the accused escorting N away from the club. At that time, the accused had one arm round N while his other arm was holding onto her.[note: 4] Shairul (a staff of Moloko Club) had, earlier in the night, noticed the accused moving in and out of the club intermittently.[note: 5] Hence, when he subsequently saw the accused moving N away from the club, he mistakenly thought that the accused must have again come out from the club albeit this time with N. Shairul saw the accused turn right, towards the direction of the staircase shown in photograph D1. At that time, N was leaning on the accused as he led her away.

14 Shortly after this, Shairul headed to a provision shop in Gallery Hotel to buy some titbits. On his way to the provision shop (which was beyond the left edge of photograph D1)[note: 6], Shairul saw the accused and N near the said staircase. N was then vomiting and the accused had his hands on her neck. On his way back from the provision shop, Shairul again spotted the accused. The accused was now carrying N, who was clearly drunk, towards the back of Moloko Club where there was a road[note: 7].

15 In the meantime, one Norazri bin Mohd Said (hereinafter referred to as “Norazri”) was waiting for his friend along the road behind Moloko Club, namely Saiboo Street. Norazri saw the accused carrying N and running fast towards a car. The accused hurriedly opened the door and placed N in the back seat, before quickly getting into the driver’s seat and driving off. Finding the accused’s behaviour suspicious, Norazri took note of the registration number of the accused’s car and memorised it.

16 At a later point in time, S and H who had searched in vain for N at the couch area, decided to go to the back of the club to look for her. When Norazri saw them and learnt that they were looking for a girl, he told them that he had seen a man carry an inebriated girl into his car. He also furnished to them the registration number of the accused’s car based on his recollection. S then, at about 2.56 am on 3 Apr 05,[note: 8] made a “999” call and provided to the police the registration number as SBK 7051 B.[note: 9] In actual fact, the registration number of the car which the accused was driving on that night was SDK 7051 B.

17 Upon receipt of the First Information Report, a message was sent out to the patrol officers to look out for the said vehicle. However, it was about an hour later[note: 10] that the police managed to spot the...