Public Prosecutor v Khoo Kwee Hock Leslie

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Audrey Lim J
• Judgment Date: 17 September 2019
• Neutral Citation: [2019] SGHC 215
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Criminal Case No 7 of 2019
• Published date: 02 November 2019
• Year: 2019
• Hearing Date: 15 March 2019,22 March 2019,18 July 2019,20 March 2019,09 May 2019,28 March 2019,21 March 2019,12 March 2019,26 March 2019,27 March 2019,19 March 2019,13 March 2019,14 March 2019,19 August 2019
• Plaintiff Counsel: Hri Kumar Nair SC, Tan Wen Hsien, Sarah Shi, Stephanie Koh and Jocelyn Teo (Attorney-General's Chambers)
• Defendant Counsel: Mervyn Cheong (Advocatus Law LLP), Andy Yeo (Eldan Law LLP) and Chooi Jing Yen (Eugene Thuraisingam LLP)
• Subject Matter: Criminal Law,Offences,Murder,Special exceptions,Diminished responsibility,Provocation,Sudden fight
• Citation: [2019] SGHC 215

Audrey Lim J: Introduction

The accused, Khoo Kwee Hock Leslie (“Leslie”) was charged with the murder of Cui Yajie (“the Deceased”) under s 300(b) of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed) (“Penal Code”) on 12 July 2016 in a car (“the Car”). It is undisputed that he committed the act of strangling the Deceased and disposed of her body by burning it.¹ There were no eyewitnesses to the incident.

I found that the Prosecution had proven beyond reasonable doubt the charge against Leslie and that he had been unable, on a balance of probabilities, to prove any of the special exceptions relied on. I therefore convicted him on the charge. I exercised my discretion under s 302(2) of the Penal Code and imposed a sentence of life imprisonment.

The Prosecution’s case

The Prosecution’s narrative was summarised in its closing submissions. Leslie and the Deceased were lovers. She believed that he was divorced and the scion of a successful laundry business. He took advantage of her trust by taking $20,000 (about RMB100,000) from her on the pretext of investing it in gold on her behalf. Instead, he used the money for his own purposes. In fact, Leslie was a married, bankrupt ex-convict who was merely an employee in a laundry business. He had cheated on his wife with several women, cheated others of money and cheated his employers.

The Deceased was just another person to satisfy Leslie’s financial needs and sexual urges. Unfortunately, he grossly underestimated her. She refused to accept his excuses and grew increasingly unhappy with him in the months leading up to her death. She wanted him to spend more time with her and not on his work or with his “ex-wife”, and even sent a message to his “ex-wife” telling her to leave him. This was significant as the last time one of Leslie’s lovers confronted his wife, his dishonesty and criminal conduct were exposed and he was jailed and bankrupted.² The Deceased was also demanding the return of her investment moneys but Leslie only managed to return half the amount to her. A day before the killing, the Deceased had pressed him for the balance.

On 12 July 2016, the Deceased informed Leslie that she was going to his workplace to speak to his bosses. Leslie knew that his façade of virtue and wealth would be shattered if she did so, and was desperate to stop her at all costs. He called her to dissuade her from going to his workplace, attempted to assuage her concerns by getting his employer to speak to her on the phone, intercepted her at Joo Koon MRT station to try and “talk her down”, and when all that failed, strangled her. He then burnt her body, scattered her ashes and disposed of her personal effects. The Deceased was going to unravel the web of lies that Leslie had spun spanning every facet of his life, and he therefore prevented her from exposing his crimes, infidelity and lies by killing her.

Application for additional witnesses

The Prosecution sought to call nine additional witnesses under s 231(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cap 68, 2012 Rev Ed) (“CPC”). They were the Deceased’s parents, those cheated by Leslie (Yvonne Lim Siew Li (“Yvonne”), Eric Ng (“Eric”) and Zhao Cui Lan (“Cui Lan”)) and his ex-girlfriends/lovers (Karen Kang (“Karen”), Linda Lim Bee Ling (“Linda”), Zhang Hong and Hu Qin). The Defence did not object to the calling of the Deceased’s parents but objected to the rest (“the Disputed Witnesses”).

Admissibility under sections 8 and 11 of the Evidence Act

The Prosecution submitted that the evidence of the Disputed Witnesses was relevant under ss 8 and 11 of the Evidence Act (Cap 97, 1997 Rev Ed). The evidence would contradict certain facts in issue, such as Leslie’s claims of being a bona fide investor of the Deceased’s moneys and the owner of the laundry business. It would provide the context for and show Leslie’s motive to silence the Deceased when she threatened to expose him to his bosses.³ The probative value of the evidence in understanding Leslie’s state of mind at the time of the killing far outweighed any prejudicial effect, and the Prosecution was not relying on the evidence as similar fact evidence.

The Defence submitted that the Disputed Witnesses’ evidence was not relevant to proving the charge and the real purpose was to show that Leslie was a liar and of bad character.⁴ Character evidence was inadmissible unless an accused person first adduced evidence of good character. Also, the Prosecution’s argument on motive was speculative as there was no evidence to show that the Deceased knew that Leslie was cheating others.

The Prosecution argued that the point was not that the Deceased knew about Leslie’s cheating but that she would set off a train of inquiry. Her threats were potentially disastrous to his reputation and could expose him to criminal liability. Further, Leslie had made his character an issue as he repeatedly claimed that the Deceased was threatening to tarnish his reputation. The evidence was also relevant because Leslie had made various claims in his statements regarding the source of the moneys and what he did with them.

I accepted that the Disputed Witnesses’ evidence might be relevant, in particular, to provide context and show whether Leslie had a motive to silence the Deceased, and hence shed light on his intention and mens rea at the time of the incident. This is especially when there were no eyewitnesses and the case would largely turn on Leslie’s testimony and circumstantial evidence. Even if the Deceased did not know that Leslie was cheating others, the point is that Leslie did, and this could potentially be his undoing should she speak to his bosses and they put two and two together. The Disputed Witnesses’ evidence might be relevant to Leslie’s defence of diminished responsibility. He claimed that he suffered from Intermittent Explosive Disorder (“IED”), which manifests with close associates including ex-girlfriends. Hence any behaviour observed by them could shed light on his purported condition. I therefore allowed Karen, Yvonne, Cui Lan, Eric and Linda to be called, but cautioned that I was not determining the weight (if any) to be attached to the evidence just yet.

Admissibility under s 32(1)(j)(iii) and (iv) of the Evidence Act

As for Hu Qin’s and Zhang Hong’s evidence, the Prosecution sought to admit their statements under s 259(1)(c) of the CPC read with ss 32(1)(j)(iii) and (iv) of the Evidence Act, given that they were out of jurisdiction and would not be testifying. Investigation Officer Tan Lian Heng (“IO Tan”) testified regarding the steps taken to contact these witnesses.⁵ He had recorded Hu Qin’s conditioned statement on 13 March 2018, when she was working in Singapore. She left Singapore in June 2018. IO Tan contacted her via WeChat three times in early 2019. Each time, she refused to come to Singapore without giving reasons. As for Zhang Hong, she had left Singapore in June 2016 but IO Tan managed to interview and take a statement from her on 7 October 2016 when she came to Singapore for work. She then left Singapore. IO Tan contacted her via WeChat shortly before the committal hearing in 2018 and again in March 2019, but each time she refused to come to Singapore.

The Defence accepted that the requirements of s 32(1)(j) of the Evidence Act were satisfied and instead grounded its objection on s 32(3). It argued that the evidence of Hu Qin and Zhang Hong was of limited probative value because the Prosecution had already lined up several witnesses in that regard. It could not be proved that Leslie would have a stronger motive because there was one more alleged girlfriend or cheating victim. Further, the evidence would be unreliable due to the lack of cross-examination.

While noting that parts of Hu Qin’s and Zhang Hong’s statements might not be relevant to the issues at trial, I was not prepared to rule out their statements entirely. Hu Qin stated that Leslie had met her for a meal, which was just two days after he had strangled the Deceased. Zhang Hong’s statement would reveal where the money Leslie used to partially repay the Deceased came from. Their statements might support the Prosecution’s case on whether Leslie had a motive to silence the Deceased and how he could disengage himself from the killing. At that stage, Leslie had not yet elected or gone on the stand to testify, and hence the issues in dispute had yet to be completely crystallised. I therefore allowed the statements to be admitted, but again cautioned that I was not determining the weight (if any) to be attached to them yet.

The Defence’s case

The Defence submitted that Leslie was only guilty of culpable homicide punishable under s 304(b) of the Penal Code, as the act was probably done with the knowledge that it was likely to cause death, without intention to cause death or such bodily injury as was likely to cause death.⁶ However, if he was found to have the mens rea under s 300(b), the exceptions of diminished responsibility, grave and sudden provocation and sudden fight applied and he would be guilty of culpable homicide punishable under s 304(a) of the Penal Code.

The Defence’s narrative (based on its closing submissions) was as follows. Leslie’s relationship with the Deceased was “not always peaceful”, and there were instances of her flaring up and then cooling off. The Defence adduced two videos. One showed the Deceased raising her voice at Leslie regarding certain posts she saw on his Facebook page, and another showed her moving her hand towards him and what looked like her knocking his handphone out of his hand when she realised he was filming her.

The events of the day leading up to the Deceased’s death were entirely unplanned. In the wee hours of 12 July 2016, the Deceased had called Leslie seven times. By the time he returned her calls, she was highly agitated. He could not calm her down despite speaking to her on the phone several times. He then left home and...