Public Prosecutor v Lee Chez Kee
| Jurisdiction | Singapore |
| Judge | Tay Yong Kwang J |
| Judgment Date | 15 January 2007 |
| Neutral Citation | [2007] SGHC 4 |
| Plaintiff Counsel | Lee Cheow Han and Tan Wee Soon (Deputy Public Prosecutors) |
| Published date | 18 January 2007 |
| Court | High Court (Singapore) |
| Defendant Counsel | Rupert Seah Eng Chee (Rupert Seah & Co) and Wendell Wong (Drew & Napier LLC) |
| Subject Matter | Criminal Law,Statements,Admissibility,Whether out-of-court confessions of co-accused not party to proceedings falling within general prohibition against hearsay evidence,Whether out-of-court confessions of co-accused not party to proceedings admissible under s 378(1)(b)(i) Criminal Procedure Code (Cap 68, 1985 Rev Ed),Sections 378(1)(b)(i) Criminal Procedure Code (Cap 68, 1985 Rev Ed),Evidence,Proof of evidence,Onus of proof,Accused standing trial on charge for murder in furtherance of common intention to commit robbery,Whether Prosecution discharging its burden beyond reasonable doubt,Whether evidence giving rise to prima facie inference accused involved in deceased's death,Section 116 Evidence Act (Cap 97, 1997 Rev Ed) |
| 15 January 2007 |
|
Tay Yong Kwang J:
1 The accused, one Lee Chez Kee, was committed to stand trial in the High Court on the following charge:
You, Lee Chez Kee (Male 37 years old)…are charged that you between 12.00 noon on the 12th day of December 1993 and 7.03 a.m. on the 14th day of December 1993, at 20 Greenleaf Place, Singapore, together with one Too Yin Sheong and one Ng Chek Siong, in furtherance of the common intention of you all, did commit murder by causing the death of one Lee Kok Cheong (Male/then 54 years old) and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under section 302 read with section 34 of the Penal Code, Chapter 224.
2 This trial represented the final chapter in the trilogy of cases that had ensued from the events occurring at 20 Greenleaf Place (“the deceased’s house”) more than a decade ago. The accused’s two other alleged accomplices, one Too Yin Sheong (“Too”) and one Ng Chek Siong (“Ng”), had already been convicted and sentenced in 1998 for their involvement in the events on that fateful day. Too was convicted of murder and sentenced to the mandatory death penalty (see Public Prosecutor v Too Yin Sheong
3 The considerable lapse of time which had ensued since the deceased’s death in 1993 presented this Court with the somewhat unusual prospect of trying the accused for a charge of common intention when both his alleged accomplices were not available as witnesses. The prosecution was unable to locate Ng, who had already served his sentence and been repatriated to Malaysia in October 2003. Though a summons had been served at Ng’s registered address in Malaysia requiring him to appear as a witness, Ng’s father informed the officer who served the summons that Ng had not been home for the past six months. Too, in turn, has had his sentence of death carried out in April 1999. The trial of the accused therefore proceeded without the oral testimony of either Too or Ng.
4 At the conclusion of the trial, I found the accused guilty of murder and accordingly convicted and sentenced him to the mandatory death penalty. The absence of oral evidence from Too and Ng did not materially prejudice the prosecution’s case since the rest of the evidence, considered in its totality, sufficed to prove the accused’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. I now give my written grounds for this decision.
The Prosecution’s Case
The discovery of the deceased’s body
5 On the morning of 14 December 1993, two police officers found one Lee Kok Cheong (“the deceased”) lying dead in the master bedroom of his house. The two police officers had been instructed by their Operations Room to proceed to the deceased’s house following a call received from the deceased’s neighbour at about 7.00 a.m. that morning. The deceased’s neighbour had contacted the police when she noticed that something was amiss at the deceased’s house. The lights on the ground floor were switched on, the main sliding door and main gate of the house were ajar and the interior light of the car parked at the porch had also been left on.
6 According to the two police officers who first discovered the deceased’s body, they noticed on their way into the house that the glove compartment of the deceased’s car, a red Honda Concerto, was opened and appeared to have been ransacked. Upon entering the deceased’s house, they also observed that the hall in the first storey and two rooms on the second storey had been ransacked. The deceased’s body was found in the third and last room on the second storey, in a supine position, with a pillow placed over his face. His hands were above his head and his wrists tied together with a white electrical cord. His feet were bound at the ankles with a black belt. When the pillow was lifted up, the two officers observed that the deceased’s denture was protruding out of his mouth.
7 Deputy Superintendent Low Hock Peng (“DSP Low”), who was then a Senior Investigating Officer attached to the Criminal Investigation Department, attended at the scene shortly thereafter. DSP Low found a bent knife with a length of about 18 centimetres from its tip to its hilt (“P154”) beneath the deceased’s body. A chopper (“P153”) was also found underneath some papers on the study table in the first storey hall.
8 The pathologist, Dr Paul Chui, gave evidence that a black electrical cord was found across the front of the deceased’s neck. The cord was not knotted and was not wound completely around the back of his neck. A stab wound was observed in the left side of the deceased’s neck. Bruising to the right side of the deceased’s face was also noted.
9 Dr Chui estimated death to have occurred about 1 to 2 days before the 14th December 1993, when the deceased’s body was found. The post mortem examination revealed that the cause of death was asphyxia due to strangulation, which had been effected using the black electrical cord found around the deceased’s neck. The stab wound sustained to the deceased’s left anterior neck was not an acutely fatal injury, and was more consistent with an injury caused by P154, which was smaller and narrower than P153. Though P154 was bent when it was found, Dr Chui’s evidence was that he would not have expected this bending to have been occurred in the course of causing the stab wound to the deceased’s neck. The force required to bend the knife would have been considerably greater than the force that would have been required to inflict the stab wound that was found. According to Dr Chui, it was possible for the stab and strangulation wounds to have been inflicted by one person.
Events before and after the robbery
10 The deceased’s brother, one Lee Kok Fatt (“Lee”), gave evidence that he and his family had gone to the deceased’s house on the morning of 12 December 1993 (“the material date”), at about 10.00 am. The purpose of their visit was to collect Chinese red packets from the deceased to distribute on the deceased’s behalf to Lee’s children and their other relatives during the Chinese New Year as the deceased would be away in England.
11 According to Lee, the deceased had specifically instructed Lee’s wife to visit him between 10.00 am and 11.00 am on the material date as he was expecting friends later that evening. When they met on the morning of the material date, Lee asked the deceased which friends he was expecting, to which the deceased replied that it would be pointless to tell him who “his two friends” were since Lee would not know them. Lee and his family left the deceased’s house sometime before 12 noon. That was the last time Lee saw or spoke to his brother.
12 On the next day, i.e., 13 December 1993, a number of Network Electronic Transfer System (“NETS”) transactions were executed using the deceased’s Cash-On-Line (“COL”) card. The accused was linked to a number of these transactions.
13 The deceased’s COL card was first used to purchase a number of items at Parkway Parade Shopping Centre (“Parkway”). The first transaction took place at M/s Jay Gee Enterprise Pte Ltd (“Jay Gee Enterprise”), where the deceased’s card was used to buy three pairs of Levi’s jeans, a T-shirt and a belt. One of the sales assistants who was on duty at Jay Gee Enterprise (“Ms Lim”) gave evidence in court that these purchases were made by three male Chinese. From their speech, Ms Lim assumed that the three males were Malaysians. The store records also documented that a sale had been made to a male Malaysian of about 20 years of age.
14 Ms Lim had, in March 1994, positively identified a picture of the accused (“picture B”) as one of the three men in question. However, she had been unable to remember if Too or Ng were the other two persons present with the accused on that day. According to Ms Lim, though she had spoken to all three persons, she remembered the person in picture B, i.e., the accused, particularly vividly as she had spoken “quite a lot” with him. Ms Lim also gave evidence that the male in picture B was the person who had handed her the COL card with which the purchases were made and was also the person who keyed in the Personal Identification Number (“PIN”) for the card.
15 Ms Lim additionally testified that the person shown in picture B and the two other Chinese males he was with had returned to the store again the next day, on 14 December 1993, to exchange some of the purchases they had made. Though Ms Lim admitted that she was no longer able to affirmatively identify any of the three Chinese men who were present at the store on those two occasions, she affirmed on re-examination that on the date when she identified the accused in 1994, she clearly remembered that the Chinese male she identified had been present at the shop on two dates, 13 and 14 December 1993. Ms Lim further testified that she had, in the course of identifying the photographs in 1994, informed the investigating officer, DSP Low, that the accused and his two companions returned to the shop again on 14 December.
16 Ms Lim’s evidence regarding the accused’s return to the shop on 14 December 1993 was contradicted by the evidence of DSP Low. According to DSP Low, Ms Lim did not mention this additional fact when she identified the accused as the user of the deceased’s COL card on 13 December.
17 Apart from Ms Lim, the prosecution also called one of her colleagues at that time, one See Ching Li Veronica, who had also supposedly attended to the three Chinese customers on 13 December. Unfortunately, this witness was unable to recall the identities or the number of persons who were present when those purchases were made.
18 Apart from the purchases made at Ms Lim’s shop, one pair of black men’s “Balene” brand shoes and three pairs of “Dr Marten” brand shoes were then...
To continue reading
Request your trial