Public Prosecutor v Tan Joo Cheng and Others

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Chao Hick Tin JC
• Judgment Date: 21 August 1990
• Neutral Citation: [1990] SGHC 55
• Date: 26 February 1992
• Docket Number: Criminal Case No 12 of 1988,Criminal Case No 5 of 1989
• Published date: 19 September 2003
• Year: 1990
• Plaintiff Counsel: Ismail Hamid (Dy Senior State Counsel)
• Citation: [1990] SGHC 55
• Defendant Counsel: Ronald Ng (Ng Lee & Partners),Alan Wong (William Lai & Allan Wong),S Rajagopal (Shan Rajagopal)
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Subject Matter: Accomplice,Offences,Common intention,Test of intention,Intention to cause fatal injury,Complicity,Murder,Participation in the act causing death of deceased,ss 34 & 300(c) Penal Code (Cap 224),Stab wound inflicted in the course of robbery,ss 34, 393 & 397 Penal Code (Cap 224),Criminal Law

Cur Adv Vult

Initially when the trial commenced the charge against the three accused, Tan Joo Cheng, Ong Ah Lek and Luah Kang Hai, was as follows:

You (1) Tan Joo Cheng

(2) Ong Ah Lek

(3) Luah Kang Hai

are charged on or about 14 February 1987 at about 2.41am at the 2nd storey of Blk 241, Hougang St 22, Singapore, and in furtherance of the common intention of you all, committed murder by causing the death of one Lee Juay Heng, and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under s 302 read with s 34 of the Penal Code(Cap 224).

We shall refer to the three accused as Joo Cheng, Ah Lek and Kang Hai respectively, and the deceased, Lee Juay Heng, as Lee.

Lee, prior to his death, lived with his wife, Mdm Aw Seok Beng, at Blk 241, Hougang St 22, #02-45, Singapore. On the evening of 13 February 1987, at about 5.30pm, Lee picked up his wife, Mdm Aw Seok Beng, in his car from their cake shop at Hougang Ave 1 and drove her home. Soon thereafter, at about 5.45pm, Lee went out and did not return that evening. At about 1am on 14 February 1987, Mdm Aw retired, and at that time Lee had still not returned. At about 2am, Mdm Aw was awakened by Lee shouting at the door. He was shouting that he was dying and that he had been stabbed and was calling out to her to come out quickly. She quickly opened the front door and saw Lee standing outside the flat clasping his neck with both hands, and his clothes were stained with blood. Lee asked her to call the police, and he entered the flat and sat on the sofa. She tried to call the police on their telephone but without success, whereupon Lee gave her some money and asked her to use the public telephone at the void deck. She rushed down to the telephone booth and telephoned the police. Lee came down and sat on the floor near the telephone booth. After her telephone call, she went up to her flat, closed the front door and returned to the void deck to attend to Lee. She asked him who had stabbed him, and in reply he said that it was a Chinese. Shortly thereafter, at 2.39am, the police and the ambulance arrived. Lee was then lying on his back motionless. The ambulance officer, Sapiah bte Ahmad, attended to him and she noticed a wound on his neck which was bleeding. At that time he was gasping for breath and in a state of shock. She administered intravenous infusion to him but he stopped breathing. Immediately she tried to resuscitate him, but he did not respond. At 2.41am she pronounced him dead.

Dr Clarence Tan, the forensic pathologist of the Department of Forensic Medicine, Singapore General Hospital, arrived at the scene at about 6.20am. He saw Lee lying in a pool of blood at the public telephone booth. Dr Tan examined Lee and noticed a stab wound at the base of the neck anteriorly just to the right of the midline. Dr Tan noticed a trail of blood droplets leading from where Lee was lying to the apartment, #02-45, and outside the apartment he noticed that there were larger blood droplets. In the apartment he saw that there was a trail of blood droplets with a long blood smear leading from the door to a single-seater armchair on which there were some clothes that appeared to be bloodstained. He noticed a pair of bloodstained white shoes in front of the armchair where the blood droplets were more numerous and there were also two smeared handprints in blood on the floor close to the door in front of the television. A short while later, the body of the deceased was brought to the Singapore General Hospital mortuary.

On the same morning, at about 9am, Dr Tan performed an autopsy on Lee and found that there was only one stab wound sustained by Lee. The stab wound was described by Dr Tan in his autopsy report (exh P44) as follows:

Stab wound

There was a single stab wound at the base of the neck anteriorly just to the right of the midline ellipitcal in shape and measuring 6.5cm when lax and 6.7cm with the margins approximated. The long axis of the wound was slanting downwards from left to right at an angle of about 45[deg ] below the horizontal axis. Both edges were pointed and the margins were slightly ragged. The lower edge was 16cm away from the right nipple, 18cm from the left nipple and 139cm above the right heel. The upper 3.5cm of wound was superficial while the lower 3cm was penetrating. There was a 1.8cm linear abrasion extending upwards from the upper edge in line with the long axis of the wound.

The track of the stab wound proceeded obliquely downwards towards the right and back undermining the lower edge and traversing the base of the neck behind the medial end of the right clavicle. The track had incised into the right innominate vein just distal to the convergence of the right internal jugular vein and the right subclavian vein. The track then entered and terminated in the right pleural cavity which showed a small wound in the parietal pleura at the apex. The upper lobe of the right lobe showed no evidence of any injury. There was a haematoma present at the anterior mediastinum close to the base of the neck and also around the right carotid bundle inferiorly. The innominate artery, the right common carotid artery and the right subclavian artery were all not injured.

The depth of the stab wound was estimated to be about 5cm to 6cm.

He certified that the cause of death was massive haemorrhage due to the stab wound.

In Dr Tan`s opinion, the characteristics of the wound are consistent with one being caused by a knife blade; they are consistent with the tip of a knife penetrating the surface and downwards, from left to right. For such a wound to be caused it requires a definite thrusting action of the knife blade into the body along the direction of the track of the wound, that is, downwards, from left to right. As no bones had been traversed, only moderate force would be required to cause such a wound. He also expressed the opinion that the wound would be sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death. The knife, P68, was produced for his examination, and he said that that knife could cause the wound sustained by Lee. He was cross-examined at some length as to the possibility of the wound being caused by Lee falling, in the course of a struggle between him and his assailant, onto the knife held out by his assailant. On that, his opinion is that in that event the track of the wound would be either horizontal into the body or going in an upward direction; that the production of such a stab requires a concentration of force being exerted on the tip of the knife onto an elastic and fairly tough organ like the skin and that involves a definite thrusting movement of the weapon into the body.

The prosecution called one Kho Yak Meng (Yak Meng), and his evidence, so far as material, is this. Sometime in January 1987 he received a telephone call from Ah Lek, the second accused, who asked him for money to which he replied that he had no money. Ah Lek then suggested that they should commit robbery, which Yak Meng declined. On or about 11 February at about 9pm, Ah Lek called him and again suggested committing robbery together. Ah Lek told him that he knew of a male Chinese who was residing in Hougang near his flat who had a lot of cash and jewellery with him. On the following day, they met at about 3pm at a coffee-shop at Blk 5, Hillview Avenue. There, Ah Lek suggested robbery again, and Yak Meng told him that he could introduce a friend, Joo Cheng, the first accused; who was then residing at Bukit Batok. They then proceeded to Joo Cheng`s flat, and there Yak Meng introduced Joo Cheng to Ah Lek. Both Joo Cheng and Ah Lek discussed about committing the robbery on the male Chinese in Hougang mentioned by Ah Lek, and it was agreed that another person should join in. They made an appointment to meet at the coffeeshop at Blk 134, Bukit Batok at about 9pm that evening.

Thereafter, Yak Meng and Ah Lek went to a car rental company, Kin Sai Motor Vehicle Rental Pte Ltd at 158, Mackenzie Road. There Ah Lek hired a pickup. Shortly after taking delivery of the pickup, he returned it to the car rental company complaining that it was not in a good and satisfactory condition. He persuaded the assistant manager of the company, Lim Cheng Poh, to lend him a car, a Dodge Avenger, EB 8535B, which belongs to another employee of the company, and he promised to return it to Lim Cheng Poh very shortly, which he never did. Having obtained the car, Ah Lek drove Yak Meng to the coffeeshop in Blk 134, Bukit Batok where they met Joo Cheng and Kang Hai, the third accused; Joo Cheng introduced Kang Hai to them. A short while later, the four of them left the coffeeshop, and travelled by car to Blk 426, Bukit Batok where Yak Meng alighted. Thereafter, Joo Cheng and Kang Hai left in the car driven by Ah Lek.

Yak Meng further said that on 13 February 1987, Ah Lek met him again at the coffeeshop at Blk 5, Hillview Avenue. Ah Lek then spent the whole day with him. At about 8pm that evening, he and Ah Lek went to the coffeeshop in Blk 134, Bukit Batok where they met Joo Cheng and Kang Hai. All four of them left in the car driven by Ah Lek and proceeded to Blk 426, Bukit Batok where Yak Meng alighted, and after that the three of them went off in the car driven by Ah Lek.

One See Keh Soon (PW7), who lives at Block 103, Hougang Ave 1, gave evidence that on 14 February 1987 at about 2am, on his return home from a dinner engagement, he heard someone screaming out aloud, and immediately he went out to his balcony and looked towards Blk 241, which is opposite and approximately 100m away; he saw two male persons on the second storey of the block struggling with each other. After a brief struggle one male person ran down the staircase followed by another, and he saw the first male person run across the turf to Hougang Ave 3 and get into a stationary car. The car then speed off in the direction of Jalan Eunos. After that he saw three or four persons...