Public Prosecutor v Mohammmad Ariff Bin Suyuti

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: May Lucia Mesenas
• Judgment Date: 10 August 2021
• Neutral Citation: [2021] SGMC 52
• Court: Magistrates' Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Magistrate Arrest Case No. 905957 of 2020, Magistrate’s Appeal No. 9107 of 2021
• Published date: 19 August 2021
• Year: 2021
• Hearing Date: 11 March 2021,09 February 2021,14 January 2021,16 April 2021,12 March 2021,04 May 2021,10 March 2021,06 April 2021,13 January 2021
• Plaintiff Counsel: Mr Tan Zhi Hao (Attorney-General's Chambers)
• Defendant Counsel: Mr Patrick Fernandez & Ms Cheryl Tan (Fernandez LLC)
• Citation: [2021] SGMC 52

District Judge May Lucia Mesenas: Introduction

The accused claimed trial to one count of voluntarily causing hurt to the victim, by punching him on the face and causing him to sustain a contusion of the face, which offence is punishable under section 323 of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed) (“PC”).

The accused was convicted on the said charge and sentenced to serve one month’s imprisonment. The accused has filed an appeal against conviction and sentence. He is currently on bail pending the appeal.

Undisputed facts

The victim is Soh Koon Sing (“victim”). At the material time, he was working as a Comfort Delgro taxi driver and was the driver of the white coloured motor taxi bearing registration number SHD 6802Y (the “taxi”). For reasons unrelated to the incident between the accused and the victim, the latter passed away on 6 June 2020, before the commencement of this trial.

On 22 September 2019, at about 5.50am, the victim was driving the taxi, which was in the queue waiting to pick up passengers at the taxi stand, located at 400 Orchard Road, Orchard Towers.

At the material time, the accused was in the vicinity of the taxi stand, seeking to book a taxi to return home. He had also attempted to hail two taxis (“blue taxis”) to go back to his home in Tampines. However, they were not going his way. He had bought packed food, was hungry and wanted to go home.

A dispute ensued between the accused and the victim. The dispute was captured on a video recording of the police surveillance camera footage (P1), which lasted for about one minute seven seconds. The following events captured in P1 are undisputed (time stamp underlined)¹: 00:00-00:04: The victim sat in the white-coloured taxi, which was in the queue waiting to pick up passengers at the taxi stand. The accused, dressed in a dark blue T-shirt, stood in the middle of the road as he was trying to hail a taxi. 00:04-00:38: The accused approached the victim’s taxi twice, and also spoke with drivers from two other blue taxis. 00:50-00:52: The Accused approached the victim’s taxi for a third time. He placed his right hand into the victim’s taxi via the driver’s window. His right wrist was clamped by the victim’s taxi window. He then withdrew his right hand out of the taxi. 00:53-00:54: The accused placed his right hand into the taxi via the driver’s window for a second time. 01:02-01:03: The accused moved his mobile phone from his left hand to his right hand. 01:03-01:07: The accused placed his right hand into the taxi via the driver’s window.

The victim lodged a police report on the same day at about 5.56am, stating that he had been ‘assaulted by guy’ (“P3”).

On the same day, the victim was conveyed by an ambulance to the Emergency Department of the Tan Tock Seng Hospital (“TTSH”) and was attended to by the examining doctor, Dr Thomas Catabas (“PW2”). The victim was diagnosed with contusion of face, treated and discharged with analgesics, and given two days of medical leave.

Prosecution’s case

The prosecution adduced evidence from the following four witnesses: i) the Investigation Officer, Inspector Ho Lup Kern (“PW1”), the recorder of the victim’s statement dated 3 December 2019 (“P6”); ii) PW2 (as above at [8]); iii) Inspector Lam Xin Hui (“PW3”), the recorder of the victim’s statement dated 22 September 2019 (“P7”); and iv) Sgt Dominic Song Guo Quan, the attending police officer at the scene (“PW4”).

At the material time, the victim was waiting at the taxi stand to pick up passengers. The accused had approached the taxi, to enquire if the victim was able to drive him to Tampines. The victim declined to do so as he was going to Boon Lay. The accused was unhappy and uttered a vulgarity at the victim. He went away. A few moments later, the accused came back to the victim’s taxi and inserted his hand through the window at the driver side. Upon seeing this, the victim wound up his window. This caused the accused’s arm to be clamped by the victim’s taxi window. Thereafter, the victim pressed the window button and the window was lowered, following which the accused punched the victim on his left cheek, causing a contusion. The victim called the police. The accused saw the victim doing so and hit the victim twice more, on the right neck and right shoulder.

The victim had passed away prior to the commencement of the trial and the prosecution sought to admit his two statements, namely, P6 and P7, under section 32(1)(j)(i) of the Evidence Act Cap 97 (“Evidence Act”).

In both P6 and P7, the victim had stated that the accused punched him on the left cheek. Specifically, in P6, the victim stated that the accused “immediately reach [sic] his hand in and hit me. He used his fist to hit my left cheek” (at [A2]). In P7, the victim stated that the accused “used his right fist to hit my left cheek area once”.

The prosecution’s case is that the punch to the victim’s cheek was corroborated by P1 at time stamp at 00:53-00:54 (showing the accused’s right hand reaching into the victim’s taxi in a quick jerking motion). The accused had also hit the victim at least twice more, on the right neck and right shoulder, sometime between 00:55-01:07 of P1.

PW4 testified that when he first arrived at the scene, the victim had informed him that he was hit on the face by the accused². Further, PW4 had stated that the accused had admitted at the scene that he had become agitated and hit the victim’s face several times³. PW4 had recorded subsequently in his contemporaneous record of the incident in the Qubicon 2 system⁴ (“P8”), a few hours after the said incident, that the accused had approached the victim (on the driver side of the taxi), asking the latter if he was going to Tampines to which the victim replied that he was going to Boon Lay. The accused said something to the victim, while standing outside the taxi, and the victim wound up the window of his taxi which hit the accused’s right arm. The accused then slapped the victim. It was also recorded in P8 that the accused had admitted to slapping the victim.

Defence submissions for No Case to Answer

The defence submitted that the prosecution had not made out the charge of voluntarily causing hurt against the accused at the close of the prosecution’s case. The main thrust of their submissions were as follows: P6 and P7 were inherently incredible, in that the victim had told PW4 at the scene that he was “slapped” by the accused on the face several times but in both these statements, this was not mentioned. Instead the victim had stated in P7 (recorded on the same date of the incident) that the accused had used his right fist to hit the victim’s left cheek area once and that the accused had also hit him once on the right head, once on the right neck and once on the right shoulder. Whereas in P6, the victim had stated that the accused had hit him once on his right neck and once on his right shoulder. As these inexplicable discrepancies in P6 and P7 and PW4’s evidence, cannot be resolved given that the defence has no opportunity to cross-examine the victim, P6 and P7 ought not to be treated as ‘relevant’, although they are admissible, in the interest of justice and fairness, pursuant to section 32(3) of the Evidence Act. PW1 did not take steps to show P1 to the victim when P6 was recorded from him to clarify inconsistencies, which included the following: Whether the victim was slapped or punched by the accused; whether the accused charged towards the victim’s taxi; the number of times the accused had hit the victim; whether the accused had hit the victim on the right head area (this was not stated in P6 but stated in P7); and whether the victim took a photo/video of the accused. PW2 was unable to confirm if the contusion on the victim’s face was indeed caused by a punch as it was the victim’s self-reporting of what happened at the material time.

Given the various inconsistencies, allegations of incomplete investigations levelled against PW1 and PW3 as well as inconclusive medical evidence, it was submitted by the defence that the accused had no case to answer.

Prosecution’s Submission for Defence to be called

It was submitted by the prosecution that it is trite law that at the close of the prosecution’s case, the prosecution needs only to establish a prima facie case, where there is ‘some evidence which is not inherently incredible and which satisfies each and every element of the charge as framed by the prosecutor’, before the court calls on the accused to give his defence (section 230(1)(j) of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cap 68, 2012 Rev Ed)).

As highlighted in the prosecution’s brief submission at the close of its case at [3], there is no requirement for the trial judge to assess the credibility of the prosecution witnesses at this stage : Haw Tua Tau v PP [1981-1982] SLR(R) 133 at [15] –[16]. It is only if the evidence of the witnesses upon whom the prosecution’s case depended was ‘so self-contradictory and out of all common sense or reason’ that the court is entitled to reach the conclusion that there is no evidence to support an essential ingredient in the charge (see PP v IC Automation (S) Pte Ltd [1996] 2 SLR (R) 799 at [17].

The prosecution submitted that the evidence adduced was not inherently incredible and satisfies the following elements of the charge: Actus reus: doing any act, thereby causing hurt to that person; and Mens rea: intention to cause hurt or knowledge that the act done is likely to cause hurt.

In both the victim’s statements in P6 and P7, the victim had stated categorically that on 22 September 2019, at about 5.50am, that the accused had, inter alia, punched him on the left cheek (see [12] above for the relevant portions of P6 and P7).

Furthermore, the victim’s evidence was corroborated by various strands of evidence as follows: P1 shows the accused reaching into the victim’s taxi through the driver’s...