Public Prosecutor v Ong Wee Teck

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Tay Yong Kwang JC
• Judgment Date: 29 June 2001
• Neutral Citation: [2001] SGHC 153
• Docket Number: Criminal Case No 26 of 2001
• Date: 29 June 2001
• Year: 2001
• Published date: 11 November 2003
• Plaintiff Counsel: Lee Lit Cheng and Tan Kiat Pheng (Attorney-General's Chambers)
• Citation: [2001] SGHC 153
• Defendant Counsel: Joseph Liow (Derrick Ravi Partnership) (assigned by CLAS)
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Subject Matter: Criminal Procedure and Sentencing,Culpable homicide not amounting to murder,Sentencing,Whether imprisonment for life appropriate sentence,Accused suffering from mental illness with history of violent behaviour,s 304(a) Penal Code (Cap 224)

: This is a tragic case of a schizophrenic man killing his elder brother, his caretaker and provider, in their home. The accused, now 40 years old, pleaded guilty to the following charge:

That you, ONG WEE TECK sometime between 9.00 p.m. on 7 December 2000 and 1.05 p.m. on 9 December 2000 at Blk 767 Yishun Ave 3 [num ]01-315, Singapore, did commit culpable homicide not amounting to murder, by causing the death of one Ong Wei Cheong, male/46 years old, and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under section 304(a) of the Penal Code, Chapter 224.

The statement of facts set out the circumstances leading to the discovery of the deceased`s body in the ground floor flat, the fateful events in the morning of 8 December 2000 as told by the accused in his statements to the police, the postmortem findings of Dr Teo Eng Swee, a Consultant Forensic Pathologist from the Department of Scientific Services and the opinion of Dr Stephen Phang, an Associate Consultant from the Woodbridge Hospital/Institute of Mental Health, contained in his report dated 30 December 2000. The statement of facts read:

1 The accused is Ong Wee Teck, NRIC No. S1493815-Z, male, 39 years of age. He was unemployed and residing at Block 767 Yishun Ave 3 [num ]01-315 at the time of the offence.

2 The deceased is Ong Wee Cheong, NRIC No. S0180305-J, male 46 years of age. He worked as a hawker helper. He was the accused`s elder brother.

3 At the time of the offence, the accused was residing at Block 767 Yishun Ave 3 [num ]01-315 (hereinafter referred to as "the flat") with his 15-year-old son, Ong Keng Peang, and the deceased. The deceased was providing for the accused and his son since the accused was not gainfully employed.

The Incident

4 Ong Keng Peang last saw the deceased alive on 7 December 2000. After having dinner with the accused and the deceased, Ong Keng Peang left the flat at about 9pm. Ong Keng Peang returned to the flat on 8 December 2000 at about 12:30pm but could not gain entry as he did not have the keys and no one answered the door. He then left.

5 Later that day at about 11:30pm, Ong Keng Peang returned to the flat again. This time, the accused opened the door. Seeing that the accused was alone in the flat, Ong Keng Peang asked where the deceased was. The accused told Ong Keng Peang that he had killed the deceased because the deceased wanted to poison him. Ong Keng Peang saw masking tape all around the door frame of the rear utility room, which was the deceased`s bedroom. Ong Keng Peang then asked the accused why there was masking tape on the door frame and the accused said that it was to prevent the stench from coming out of the room.

6 Feeling frightened, Ong Keng Peang left the flat and tried to look for the deceased at the coffeeshop where he worked. When Ong Keng Peang could not find the deceased, he sought help from his friend, Lim Wei Jian. Together with Lim Wei Jian, Ong Keng Peang eventually went to look for his grandmother (the accused`s mother) at about 3:45am on 9 December 2000. He related to his grandmother what had happened and she told him to go to sleep first and report the matter to the police later in the morning.

7 On 9 December 2000 at about 12:30pm, Ong Keng Peang and Lim Wei Jian went to a Neighbourhood Police Post and reported to the police that the accused had said that he had killed the deceased. Ong Keng Peang also informed the police that his father was insane and his grandmother had gone to look for his father at Block 767 Yishun Ave 3 [num ]01-315. The police then told him to proceed to the flat to wait for them.

8 The police arrived at the flat at about 1:05pm on 9 December 2000. The iron grille was padlocked and the accused answered the door. The accused later opened the door to let the police in, and told them that there was someone at the rear and asked them to go and take a look. The police found masking tape sealing the entire door frame of the rear utility room. The police saw blood all over in the rear utility room and called for reinforcement.

9 The police had to use force to push open the door to the rear utility [ sic ] fully as it was blocked by an unused refrigerator placed behind the door inside the room. The police found the deceased lying naked on the floor in the rear utility room next to the window and there was a lot of blood on the floor and on the walls around him. The body was in a crouching position. The head was on the floor (face down), the forearms and hands were to either side of the head. There was a pool of blood around the region of the head. The thighs were folded under the abdomen. The deceased was pronounced dead at about 1:50pm on 9 December 2000, and the accused was placed under arrest.

The Accused`s Statements

10 The accused said in his statements to the police that on 8 December 2000 at about 8:00 a.m., the deceased came home after having breakfast. He gave the accused $10 and told the accused to go and have his coffee. The deceased then went to the bathroom in the kitchen to take a shower. Suddenly, the thought of killing the deceased came into the accused`s mind and the accused went to the kitchen to take a chopper from the wash basin. He then pushed open the bathroom door with force and saw the deceased standing there naked. The accused then slashed the deceased`s head with the chopper. The deceased was shocked and asked him "How can you slash me?" and asked the accused to send him to the hospital. The deceased struggled with the accused and tried to grab the chopper from the accused. The accused continued to slash the deceased with the chopper. The deceased asked the accused why he was attacking him and who would take care of their mother and the accused`s son. After a while, the accused stopped the attack. The deceased was bleeding profusely.

11 The accused then came out of the bathroom and placed the chopper on the kitchen wash basin. He sat down at the kitchen table to smoke a cigarette. The deceased, who was lying on the bathroom floor, got up and went to the rear utility room and closed the door. The accused heard him falling down to the ground in the room. The accused then went to take a bath and used the deceased`s shirt and water to clean the bloodstains in the bathroom and the kitchen. Later, he used masking tape to seal up the door of the utility room.

Post-mortem Findings

12 Dr Teo Eng Swee, the Consultant Forensic Pathologist from the Department of Scientific Services, examined the body at the scene on 9 December 2000 at about 5:45pm and found that the body was cold and rigor mortis was dissipating. Dr Teo conducted an autopsy on 11 December 2000 at about 9:30am and found 25 slash or incised wounds on the deceased`s head, neck and various parts of the body. The left side of the mandible was fractured, related to the incised wound on the left mandibular region of the face. There were also incised wounds of the skull. Dr Teo certified that the cause of death was positional asphyxia , which was contributed to by the head injury (intracranial haemorrhage) as well as blood loss (haemorrhage due to incised wounds). Dr Teo is of the opinion that it would be difficult for a person to breathe in...