Public Prosecutor v Tay Hee Cheow

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Eric Tin Keng Seng
• Judgment Date: 10 December 2003
• Neutral Citation: [2003] SGMC 40
• Court: Magistrates' Court (Singapore)
• Year: 2003
• Published date: 15 January 2004
• Plaintiff Counsel: Station Inspector Sheik Alauddeen (Police Prosecutor)
• Defendant Counsel: Ravinderpal Singh (Kalpanath and Co)
• Citation: [2003] SGMC 40

1 This is an appeal by the Public Prosecutor against the sentence imposed on Tay Hee Cheow (“Tay”), who pleaded guilty before me to the following charge (“P1”):

You…are charged that you, on the 1^st day of March 2003, at or about 11.52 am, at the car park located at Blk 216 Bedok North St 1, Singapore, did voluntarily cause hurt to Yong Yoke Lai, to wit, by punching Yong Yoke Lai on her forehead, and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under section 323 of the Penal Code, Chapter 224.

Summary of facts

2 Tay understood the nature and consequence of his plea. He admitted without any qualification to the statement of facts (“A”). Investigations revealed that on 1 March 2003 at about 11.45 am, Ms Yong Yoke Lai (“Ms Yong”) arrived at the car park of Blk 216 Bedok North Street 1. She parked her vehicle, a blue coloured BMW (registration number ES 82D) in front of lot number 139 as she was waiting for a vehicle from lot number 91 to move off. When the vehicle from lot number 91 moved off, Tay drove his vehicle, a black coloured Nissan Sunny (registration number SCZ 7914U) into the said lot and parked his vehicle there.

3 Ms Yong came out from her vehicle and confronted Tay as she was frustrated. Tay came out of his vehicle and confronted Ms Yong. Two witnesses Mr Lim Lean Theng and Ms Teo Kan Tee then saw Tay punching Ms Yong’s forehead.

4 The medical report of Ms Yong from Changi General Hospital stated that she sustained a “1 cm erythema on her forehead, which was not swollen or tender. There were no visible signs of injury on the cheeks, which were non tender.”

Antecedents and mitigation

5 Tay has no criminal record.

6 In mitigation (“B”), counsel informed the court that Tay is 50 years of age. He works as an assistant manager in a Malaysian company. He is married with 2 schoolgoing children. This incident was completely out of his character. He never had any brush with the law before. He had made a written apology to Ms Yong and had offered her compensation of $500.

7 According to the defence, at the material time, the car park lots were full and vehicles were illegally parked on double yellow lines on the left side of the road. Most of them were unloading goods. Ms Yong’s car was in front of Tay’s car and there was a taxi behind the latter. All 3 cars were close to each other. A car wanted to get out of one of the lots that was just behind Ms Yong’s car. It could not do so unless Ms Yong’s car move forward. She did so and the car left the lot. However, her car could not reverse into that lot as the angle was too small and the path was blocked. Her car was parallel to the car that just left that lot. The taxi driver behind Tay’s car was getting frustrated and gestured to him to either drive into the lot or drive on as Tay was blocking the cars behind. Knowing that Ms Yong could not reverse into the vacant lot, Tay then decided to move into it so as not to block the traffic. Ms Yong’s car then moved forward.

8 A few minutes later, while Tay was tearing out the tabs on his car park coupon, he looked up and saw Ms Yong walking towards him. She hit the bonnet of his car forcefully and there was a loud bang. She then raised her voice and began to shout at him and accused him of taking her lot. Tay got out of his car to check if his bonnet was damaged. At the same time, he tried to reason with Ms Yong. Ms Yong then raised her right hand and continued to shout at him. Tay thought she was going to strike him with her raised hand and raised his left hand and struck her. Counsel submitted that very little force was used, and the medical report confirmed that Ms Yong suffered minimal injury. Counsel pointed out that “erythema” is essentially a medical term for redness, and that Ms Yong did not suffer any bruising, swelling or tenderness as a result.

Address on sentence

9 The prosecution did not challenge any aspect of the mitigation. They submitted that this was not a case of road rage, but an incident over parking. Apart from highlighting the fact that the victim is a female, the prosecution confirmed...