Public Prosecutor v Manoj s/o Sankar

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Janet Wang Lan Jee
• Judgment Date: 12 October 2015
• Neutral Citation: [2015] SGDC 286
• Court: District Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: MCN 900577/2014
• Year: 2015
• Published date: 16 October 2015
• Hearing Date: 01 September 2015,31 August 2015,08 September 2015
• Plaintiff Counsel: DPP Jeremy Lua
• Defendant Counsel: Mr Kalidass
• Citation: [2015] SGDC 286

District Judge Janet Wang Lan Jee: Background

The menace of road rage set the stage in this appeal against sentence.

The accused, a 37-year old delivery driver, had punched the victim, a 53-year old taxi driver twice on his face. The assault stemmed from an incident on the road when they were travelling in the vicinity of Serangoon Road on the afternoon of 7 November 2013. The victim had stopped his taxi at a traffic light. At the material time, the lorry driven by the accused was behind the victim’s vehicle.

Upon the traffic light turning green, the victim failed to move his vehicle. The accused then sounded his horn. They proceeded to drive to the junction of Playfair Road to MacPherson Road. Both vehicles came to a stop at the junction. At that juncture, the accused left his lorry and approached the victim’s taxi. He kicked the door of the taxi and knocked on the window where the victim was seated. Fearing that the accused would break the window, the victim wound it down. The accused then punched the victim once on his face. As the victim exited his taxi to flee from the accused, the latter punched his face again. The victim pushed the accused away. Both parties called the police. Before the arrival of the police, the accused told the victim to look for him in Yishun.

The victim sustained bleeding from his lips and nose, as well as bodily pain from the assault.

The accused first claimed trial to a charge of voluntarily causing hurt under section 323 of the Penal Code, Chapter 224. On the second day of the designated trial before the commencement of the hearing, the accused pleaded guilty to this charge. For ease of reference, the charge is set out as follows:

You, Manoj s/o Sankar, are charged that you, on 7 November 2013, at or about 3.26pm, at the junction of Playfair Road to MacPherson Road, Singapore, did voluntarily cause hurt to one Tong Chee Loong (M/53), to wit, by punching the said Tong Chee Loong twice on his face causing him to feel bodily pain and bleed from his lips and nose, and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 323 of the Penal Code, Chapter 224

I imposed a sentence of 25 days’ imprisonment against which the accused has appealed. He is presently on bail pending the appeal.

Integral to this appeal is whether a custodial sentence ought to have been imposed. I now set out my reasons.

Mitigation

In mitigation, counsel sought a fine. In support of a non-custodial sentence, counsel submitted that the accused was suffering from a major depressive disorder at the material time which stemmed from a failed marriage¹. The defence conceded that there was no causal link between the mental condition of the accused and the offence². According to counsel, the accused had perceived the victim to be the source of aggression and abuse, namely, in showing his middle finger, driving dangerously and deliberately blocking the vehicle of the accused by ‘jam-braking’. Annoyed at the victim’s conduct and concerned over his safety, the accused approached the former’s vehicle to speak and request him to stop driving dangerously. The defence further submitted that the victim had acted belligerently by uttering vulgarities and showing his middle finger, which provoked the accused into reacting. According to counsel, the accused made voluntary compensation of $1000 and a written apology to the victim. Both were accepted by the victim³. In her letter to the court seeking leniency for the accused, his mother stated that she and her husband depended very much on him for care and financial support. According to her, the accused was well liked and well respected by his friends, for whom he carried out free delivery. She claimed that he was not a violent person. She added that the accused would lose his delivery contract, of which he was the main contractor, if he were incarcerated. The loss of the delivery contract would also affect his subcontractors.

The sentence

The prescribed punishment for the offence of voluntarily causing hurt under section 323 of the Penal Code (Cap.224) is a maximum imprisonment term of 2 years or a maximum fine of $5000, or both.

Whether the custodial threshold was breached

I found this issue to be answered in the affirmative. The accused was the sole aggressor in the unilateral attack on the victim. His act of approaching and confronting the victim was a precursor to the violence he displayed. The accused kicked the door of the victim’s taxi. He then threw 2 punches onto the victim’s face. The first assault occurred while the victim was in the taxi with his window wound down. The subsequent assault came about as the victim exited his taxi to flee from the accused. The accused continued to challenge the victim to look for him in Yishun, even after the police were called. The aggression exhibited by the accused had far from abated. Throughout the episode, the victim was placed in fear⁴. Neither was it an isolated instance of violence. It was abundantly clear that he was spoiling for a fight. Equally aggravating was the fact that the accused, at 37 years old, was markedly younger with a physical advantage over the 53 years old victim. The victim was a public transport provider. While I recognised that there was no contractual relationship in the provision of transport services, the actions of the accused had affected the livelihood of the victim, albeit temporarily, as it rendered him incapable of ferrying passengers at the material time of the offence, and when he was suffering from bodily pain and bleeding. These were aggravating factors that lent themselves to the imposition of a custodial sentence.

I was not persuaded by the arguments applied by the defence. The backbone of its contention, namely, the victim’s allegedly anti-social behaviour was not borne out by investigations, according to the prosecution. Even if the victim did utter the abusive words and made an insulting gesture, the reactions of the accused were at once disproportionate and misplaced. Given that the accused had the presence of mind to call the police after the incident, it would not have been beyond him to simply take down the registration number of the victim’s taxi. He would have done well in his civic duty by referring any complaints of inconsiderate driving to the traffic police, as well as the taxi company where the victim worked. Simply put, his sense of vigilante justice was misplaced. I found his perception of impending danger to be equally misconceived, given that the accused was driving a lorry, which was a larger vehicle with a capacity to wreak more damage than a taxi.

The length of the custodial sentence to be imposed

In determining the length of the imprisonment term, I considered the following factors. To his credit, this was the first conviction of the accused involving violence, apart from a previous antecedent of drink driving in 2003⁵. In his favour too, I noted that the accused had made voluntary compensation of $1000, and a written apology to the victim, albeit these came at a rather late stage of the court proceedings, namely, shortly before the plea of guilt and before the passing of the sentence respectively⁶.

Generally, a timeous plea of guilt is a mitigating factor- PP v Xia Qin Lai v PP [1999] 3 SLR( R ) 257. However, the accused person’s plea of guilt was not a...