Public Prosecutor v Ryan Xavier Tay Seet Choong and another

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Tan Jen Tse
• Judgment Date: 27 November 2020
• Neutral Citation: [2020] SGDC 272
• Court: District Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: DAC 902844-5/2016, MA 9844/2020/01-02, MA 9845/2020/01
• Year: 2020
• Published date: 15 January 2021
• Hearing Date: 05 October 2020,11 February 2020,30 July 2020,17 February 2020,13 February 2020,11 March 2020,24 February 2020,12 February 2020,12 March 2020,09 March 2020,13 March 2020,10 March 2020,24 August 2020
• Plaintiff Counsel: DPPs Jason Chua & Wong Kok Weng
• Defendant Counsel: Peter Low, Andre Jumabhoy, Christine Low & Ashley Yeo (Peter Low & Choo LLC),Ang Sin Teck & Melvyn Liew (Belinda Ang Tang & Partners)
• Subject Matter: Criminal Law,Offences,Voluntarily causing grievous hurt
• Citation: [2020] SGDC 272

District Judge Tan Jen Tse: Introduction

The first accused, Ryan Xavier Tay Seet Chong (“Ryan”), male, 24 years, was convicted after trial on the following amended charge:-

DAC 902844-2018

[a]re charged that you on 9th day of July 2016 at or about 7.50 p.m. at 5th floor staircase landing of Blk 279 Yishun Street 22, Singapore, did voluntarily cause grievous hurt to one Shawn Ignatius Rodrigues (male / 26 years’ old), to wit, by stomping on his shoulder, punching his face and head multiple times, forcefully pushing his face to the ground, and pressing your knee on his back for about 20 minutes, causing the said Shawn Ignatius Rodrigues to sustain traumatic asphyxia with head injury which led to his death, and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 325 of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed).

He was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment on 5 October 2020. At his request, sentence was deferred to 20 October 2020. Ryan has filed an appeal against conviction and sentence, while the Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against sentence.

The second accused, Lim Peck Beng Lawrence (“Lawrence”), male, 57 years, was at the same trial convicted on the following charge:-

DAC 902845-2018

[a]re charged that you on 9th day of July 2016 at or about 7.50 p.m. at 5th floor staircase landing of Blk 279 Yishun Street 22, Singapore, did intentionally abet by aiding one Ryan Xavier Tay Seet Choong (male / 23 years’ old) to voluntarily cause grievous hurt to one Shawn Ignatius Rodrigues (male / 26 years’ old), to wit, by sitting on the said Shawn Ignatius Rodrigues’s buttocks and holding his legs, while the said Ryan Xavier Tay Seet Choong was punching his face and head multiple times, forcefully pushing his face to the ground; and pressing his knee on the said Shawn Ignatius Rodrigues’s back for about 20 minutes, causing the said Shawn Ignatius Rodrigues to sustain fractures of the nasal bones and medial wall of the right orbit, which act was committed in consequence of your abetment and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 325 read with s 109 of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed)

Lawrence was sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment, deferred to 20 October 2020. He has filed an appeal against conviction and sentence. There is no cross-appeal against sentence by the Public Prosecutor.

After the Notices of Appeal were filed, a mention was fixed on 20 October 2020 for the accused persons to apply for bail pending appeal. Both chose not to do so. Instead, they elected to start serving sentence that day.

Background facts

Ryan is the stepson of Lawrence. They lived at Apt Blk 279 Yishun Street 22 #XXX (“the unit”). Ng Hui Eng Irene (“Irene”) who is Ryan’s mother also lived there. Irene is Lawrence’s wife. She married him after her divorce from Ryan’s father. I will refer to them collectively as “the family”.

Ryan and Shawn Ignatius Rodrigues (“the deceased”) met in 2006 when they were altar boys at The Lady Star of the Sea church at Yishun. When church members teased the deceased (whom Ryan felt was mentally slow), Ryan stood up for him. The deceased then tried to get close to him and started to message him. Ryan did not feel comfortable and avoided the deceased.¹

The deceased was banned from the church in 2012 or 2013 for reasons which are not relevant to this case. There was no interaction between Ryan and the deceased from then until 2014, when the deceased was re-admitted as an altar boy.² Things did not go well. On one occasion, the deceased used Ryan’s photograph as his WhatsApp display picture. Ryan confronted the deceased who denied it was wrong to do so. The deceased then started to contact Ryan. Ryan felt uncomfortable as the deceased constantly pressed him about his personal life. He decided to quit the church about two months after the deceased returned.³

The deceased harassed the family

After Ryan stopped going to church, the deceased started to stalk him. He followed Ryan, sent messages to his handphone, and made numerous nuisance calls. When Ryan changed his handphone number, the deceased confronted him. He wanted to know why Ryan left the church and was avoiding him. The deceased also loitered around the next block and along the corridor outside the unit. He accosted Ryan when Ryan was on his way to school and followed him to the bus stop. The deceased also waited for Ryan after school.⁴

When Ryan started national service in May 2016, his schedule became unpredictable. The deceased started to become more confrontational and aggressive.⁵ According to Lawrence, the deceased started to harass Irene in 2015 by sending her multiple texts, sometimes in the middle of the night. He loitered at the adjacent block. He peeped into the unit from the adjacent block and visited the unit on multiple occasions to ask for Ryan. Lawrence tried to reason with the deceased. This was to no avail as the deceased was insistent on seeing Ryan.⁶

Irene alleged in her police report dated 27 March 2016, that the deceased had followed her when she was walking her two dogs. He pulled at her shoulder and arm. This led to a struggle, during which Irene suffered scratches to her left arm. She felt intimidated and threatened by the deceased and felt that he had outraged her modesty.⁷ This incident particularly irked Ryan.

In another incident which also upset Ryan, the mother of a neighbour claimed that the deceased assaulted her on 5 July 2016. Ur Kok Seng (PW 8) stated in his conditioned statement (CS-15) that the deceased punched his mother twice after she saw him knocking on the door of the unit and reprimanded him. Ryan had seen ambulance officers attending to her when he came home.

The family tried to prevent the harassment

Not unexpectedly, the family was traumatised by the harassment. They made 59 police reports against the deceased (Exhibits DB 1-67). The first report was lodged on 22 February 2015. The last report was on 9 July 2016 at 5.15 p.m., a few hours before the deceased’s death.

The family felt that the police did not do enough to help them. Lawrence testified that despite the numerous police reports, the deceased was never detained or questioned. Irene filed a Magistrate’s Complaint sometime in January 2016 at the State Courts. Lawrence and she attended two mediation sessions with the deceased and his mother. The judge warned the deceased not to visit the unit, but he continued to do so. Irene and Lawrence also went to see their Member of Parliament who escalated their case to Ang Mo Kio Police Division.⁸

Ryan and Lawrence also undertook certain measures to deter the deceased from harassing them. They confronted the deceased when he appeared. They tried to scare the deceased by assaulting him. As summarized by the prosecution in their final submissions, Ryan assaulted the deceased on the following occasions:-⁹ Sometime in 2015, the deceased approached Ryan outside the unit and grabbed his hand. Ryan kicked the deceased in the stomach; In 2015, the deceased approached Ryan at the void deck when Ryan was walking his dog. The deceased asked Ryan for his handphone number. Ryan threw a stick at the deceased’s upper body. When the deceased grabbed the dog’s leash, Ryan kicked him on his right hip; On 23 June 2015, the deceased approached Ryan along the corridor outside the unit. He asked Ryan for his phone number and grabbed Ryan’s hand. Ryan kicked him in the stomach. When the deceased continued to follow him, Ryan punched him in the chest and struck his face with a shoe bag; and During a second incident on 23 June 2015, the deceased pulled Ryan’s haversack at the staircase landing outside the unit. Ryan turned around, punched the deceased in the stomach and pushed him against a wall. When the deceased doubled over, Ryan struck the deceased’s face with his right knee. As a result, the deceased’s mouth bled and he lost some teeth.

Lawrence took his own measures against the deceased on the following occasions:-¹⁰ In early 2016, the deceased knocked on the door of the unit. Lawrence opened the door and sprayed insecticide in the deceased’s face for about a minute; On 9 January 2016, when the deceased visited the unit, Lawrence chased the deceased and discharged the contents of a fire extinguisher on him; On 6 March 2016, the deceased showed up when Lawrence and his family were having a celebration at a coffeeshop. Lawrence threw a chair at him; and On 4 July 2016, the deceased knocked on the door of the unit. Lawrence opened the door and gate. As the deceased ran away, Lawrence hit the deceased in his back and thigh with a baseball bat.

These incidents have been set out for the sake of completeness. However, I did not place any weight on them in determining whether the accused persons had committed the offences. In my view, the evidence of prior assaults had a prejudicial effect and little probative value.

Psychological reports on the deceased

After the complaint was made by Irene, the State Courts referred the deceased to the Centre for Psychotherapy on 4 May 2016. The deceased received ten counselling sessions from Dr Nisha Rani (PW10) (“Dr Nisha”), the last of which was on the day he died. She also saw his mother and father and tried to devise strategies to discourage him from harassing the family.

Dr Nisha thought that the deceased could have suffered from “erotomania” and informed the court of this on 11 June 2016. She noticed that he needed psychiatric attention with psychotherapy or counselling intervention.¹¹

Dr Susan Zachariah (PW9), a Consultant Psychiatrist at the Institute of Mental Health (“IMH”) saw the deceased on 7 July 2016. She stated in her report (Exhibit P9) that he had oddities in his speech and demeanour. He also had an obsessive pre-occupation suggestive of possible Asperger’s Syndrome and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. She referred him to the Adult...