Public Prosecutor v McCrea Michael

• Judgment Date: 05 July 2006
• Date: 05 July 2006
• Docket Number: Criminal Case No 17 of 2006
• Court: High Court (Singapore)

Public Prosecutor

Plaintiff

and

McCrea Michael

Defendant

[2006] SGHC 119

Choo Han Teck J

Criminal Case No 17 of 2006

High Court

Criminal Procedure and Sentencing–Sentencing–Date of commencement–Whether court should exercise discretion to backdate commencement of accused's sentence to when accused arrested and remanded in foreign country–Criminal Procedure and Sentencing–Sentencing–Principles–Accused pleading guilty to two charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and one charge of causing disappearance of evidence to avoid punishment–Application of “totality” principle and “one-transaction” principle where accused convicted for multiple offences in one set of proceedings–Appropriate sentence–Section 18 Criminal Procedure Code (Cap 68, 1985 Rev Ed)–Sections 201, 304 (b) Penal Code (Cap 224, 1985 Rev Ed)

The accused pleaded guilty to two charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under s 304 (b) of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 1985 Rev Ed) and one charge of causing the disappearance of evidence with the intention of screening himself from legal punishment, an offence punishable under s 201 of the Penal Code. A fourth charge, also under s 201, was taken into account for the purposes of sentencing.

The accused had killed his flatmates (“Guan” and “Suzie”) in the course of a fight which had started over Guan calling a fourth flatmate (“Audrey”), whom the accused had courted, a “slut”. The decomposed bodies of Guan and Suzie were later found hidden in a car in the parking lot of a building. The accused and Audrey fled to London and subsequently Australia where they were arrested. The accused admitted to taking measures to hide the fact of the killings by hiding the bodies, removing bloodstains from the flat where the fight and murder had occurred and disposing of the deceased persons' belongings.

In mitigation, counsel for the accused suggested that the accused had acted in self-defence. This contradicted the statement of facts that the accused had admitted to which stated that the accused had expressed that he “had to 'silence' Suzie as she had witnessed the incident”. The only available independent and contemporaneous evidence before the court was forensic evidence.

Held:

(1) In sentencing a person convicted, in the same proceedings, of multiple offences, the “one-transaction” and the “totality” principles had to be considered as part of the court's sentencing discretion. The “one-transaction” principle was a reminder that the multiple offences could be so closely connected that it might not be fair to treat them as entirely separate offences for sentencing purposes. The “totality principle” was an expansion of the “one-transaction principle” and required the sentencing court to take into account all overlapping factors, which might, in some cases, render the overall punishment harsher than the offender deserved: at [14].

(2) In mitigation, the accused expressed his brotherly affection for Guan and pointed out the trivial cause of the fight. The forensic evidence, however, showed that the fight had left Guan with extensive, violent and serious injuries that warranted a ten-year term of imprisonment: at [15].

(3) The facts in the statement of claim admitted to by the accused coincided with the forensic evidence to disclose that the accused had tightly secured plastic bags around Suzie's neck with the knowledge that doing so was likely to cause Suzie's death. This warranted a ten-year sentence of imprisonment: at [16].

(4) The accused was the mastermind in causing the disappearance of evidence by gathering a team to dispose of the corpses and eradicate all traces of the deaths from his flat. A term of four years' imprisonment was appropriate even though Audrey was sentenced to two consecutive sentences of six years' imprisonment in respect of two charges of causing the disappearance of evidence. The accused was charged with two charges of murder, charges not faced by Audrey. The disparity in sentences was not a great one and was explained by the application of the “totality principle” in sentencing the accused for his crimes: at [17].

(5) The “one-transaction” and “totality” principles had to be considered again when deciding how many, and which of the sentences ought to run concurrently or consecutively under s 18 of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cap 68, 1985 Rev Ed). The second homicide was committed not long after the first, but the long break in time between them and the surrounding circumstances showed that the two homicides were two separate transactions. Considered in the light of the “totality” principle, the two sentences under s 304 (b) were to run consecutively. The manner in which the accused organised a team to dispose off evidence and his flight from the jurisdiction were justification for the sentence under s 201 to run consecutively to that of the two homicide offences: at [18].

(6) The commencement date of a prison sentence was a sympathy factor at the discretion of the court. There was no reason for the court to exercise its discretion to order that the accused's prison sentence begin from the time of his arrest or remand in Australia since the reason why the accused was remanded for so long prior to trial was due largely to his resistance to extradition proceedings against him: at [19].

V Murugesan v PP [2006] 1 SLR (R) 388; [2006] 1 SLR 388 (refd)

Criminal Procedure Code (Cap 68, 1985 Rev Ed) s 18 (consd)

Penal Code (Cap 224, 1985 Rev Ed) ss 201, 304 (b) (consd);s 34

Wong Kok Weng, Christopher Ong Siu Jin and Gillian Koh Tan (Deputy Public Prosecutors) for the Prosecution

Kelvin Lim (Kelvin Lim & Partners) and Jason Peter Dendroff (Ann Tan & Associates) for the accused.

Choo Han Teck J

1 The accused pleaded guilty to two charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, under s 304 (b) of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 1985 Rev Ed) and one charge of causing the disappearance of evidence with the intention of screening himself from legal punishment, which was an offence punishable under s 201 of the Penal Code. The three charges are set out below for convenience:

Amended 1st Charge

on the 2^nd day of January 2002 at No. 21 Balmoral Park, #05-11 Pinewood Gardens, Singapore, did commit culpable homicide not amounting to murder by causing the death of one Kho Nai Guan, male, 46 years old, to...