Public Prosecutor v Vijayan Mahadevan

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Shaiffudin Bin Saruwan
• Judgment Date: 09 March 2022
• Neutral Citation: [2022] SGDC 52
• Court: District Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: District Arrest Case No. 912541-2020, Magistrate’s Appeal No. MA-9223-2021-01
• Year: 2022
• Published date: 16 March 2022
• Hearing Date: 22 April 2021,22 September 2021,26 January 2021,30 April 2021,07 October 2021,28 January 2021,12 July 2021
• Plaintiff Counsel: DPP Lim Shin Hui and Huo Jiongrui
• Defendant Counsel: Mr Kanagavijayan Nadarajan (Kana & Co)
• Subject Matter: Criminal law,Road Traffic Act,Drink driving,Criminal procedure and sentencing,Sentencing
• Citation: [2022] SGDC 52

District Judge Shaiffudin Bin Saruwan: Introduction

The Accused was convicted after trial on the charge of drink driving under s 67(1)(b) punishable under s 67(2)(b) of the Road Traffic Act (Cap 276, 2004 Rev Ed){“RTA”). He has appealed against conviction and sentence.

The charge

The charge against the Accused was –

“…, on 26 March 2020, at about 1.10 a.m., along Marine Parade Road, Singapore, while driving the motorcar bearing registration number SGH 711 G, did have so much alcohol in your body that the proportion of it in your blood, to wit, not less than 174 milligrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood, exceeded the prescribed limit of 80 milligrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood, and you have thereby committed an offence under s 67(1)(b) of the Road Traffic Act (Cap 276, 2004 Rev Ed)(“RTA”),

And further, that you, before the commission of the said offence, were on 13 November 2014 in State Court No. 21, vide DAC 925125/14, convicted of two offences of driving a vehicle when the proportion of alcohol in body exceeds the prescribed limit under s 67(1)(b) of the RTA, which convictions have not been set aside to date, and you are therefore liable to be punished with enhanced punishment under s 67(1) read with s 67(2)(b) of the RTA”.

DPP Lim Shin Hui and Huo Jiongrui conducted the prosecution. The Accused was represented by Mr Kanagavijayan Nadarajan.

The trial The prosecution’s case

On 26 March 2020, at about 1.10 am, the Accused was driving his car (registration numbers SGH 711 G) along Marine Parade Road in the direction of Bedok South Avenue 1. when he was stopped at a police roadblock along the aforementioned road. SSgt Lum Wangyan (“SSgt Lum”) who was one of the officers on duty at the roadblock, then instructed the Accused to step out of the car. SSgt Lum noticed that the Accused smelt of alcohol. His face was flushed face and his eyes were bloodshot. His gait was unsteady. His speech was slurred. SSgt Lum asked the Accused if he had consumed alcohol. The Accused replied that he had consumed three cans of beer earlier. SSgt Lum conducted a breathalyser test on the Accused. The Accused failed the test. SSgt Lum placed him under arrest after he had acknowledged the test result¹.

Due to the COVID-19 situation at the time, SSgt Lum also asked the Accused whether he had any travel history in the past 14 days. When the Accused replied that he did not, SSgt Lum handed him over to the escorting officers to escort the Accused to Bedok Police Division Headquarters (“G Division”). SSgt Mohammad Fadil Bin Jamil (“SSgt Fadil”) was one of the escorting officers. He had observed that the Accused had unsteady gait, had slurred speech and smelt of alcohol².

At G Division, the Accused was brought to the lock-up external holding area. At about 2.30 am, Sgt Kweh Jun Qi Justin (“Sgt Kweh”) attended to him at the holding area. Sgt Kweh asked the Accused whether he had any recent travel history in the past 14 days. Sgt Kweh said that the Accused replied that he had travelled on 15 March 2020. As there was a standing instruction that accused persons with recent travel history were to be referred to Tanglin Police Division Headquarters (“E Division”) immediately to avoid intermingling with other accused persons in the lock-up area. This was to avoid possible contamination³. As such no breath test was administered on the Accused at G Division. The Accused was instead referred to E Division. Before the Accused was escorted to E Division, SSgt Fadil served the Accused the NP 306 form which contained the requisite warning and the medical consent form (Exhibit P2). The Accused appended his signature to confirm his consent to provide a specimen of his blood for analysis⁴.

According to Investigation Officer (“IO”) Yus Mastari I Khazali (“IO Yus”), as the Accused had a recent travel history, he was referred to E Division for a blood test to be administered instead of a breath test. This was to avoid contamination of the breath analysing device. That was the reason why no breath test was conducted on the Accused.

On 26 March 2020, the nurse on duty at E Division was P Gayathiri (“Gayathiri”). She was the nurse with the Healthway Mobile Group (“HMG”). HMG was contracted to procure blood samples from subjects who, inter alia, were suspected of having committed a drink driving offence. Upon being alerted that the Accused was to provide his blood specimen for analysis, she activated the doctor on call, Dr Joel Soon Jia Yi (“Dr Soon”). After that, she filled up the blood specimen submission form (Exhibit P6) based on the information contained in Exhibit P2. These included the Accused’s name and NRIC numbers, the police report numbers, the IO’s name and the date and time the blood sample. She had written down the information on the form. Then she prepared the materials for Dr Soon to procure the Accused’s blood. These included a needle, a syringe, a blood tube, a cotton bud and a plaster⁵. The Accused’s blood sample would be deposited and stored in the blood tube. Gayathri testified that she had also written down the Accused’s name and identity card number on the blood tube⁶.

At about 5.10 am on 26 March 2020, the Accused was brought into the nurse’s room at E Division for his blood sample to be taken⁷. He was attended to by Dr Soon. Gayathri was also present in the room. Dr Soon testified that he had verified the Accused’s name and identity card number. He then interviewed the Accused followed by a medical examination. He documented the interview and examination in Exhibit P2⁸. Dr Soon then procured his blood sample. First, he connected a new needle to a new syringe. He then cleaned the intended venepuncture site with sterile water or saline. He then performed the venepuncture and drew the Accused’s blood. The blood specimen was then transferred to the blood tube by piercing the needle connected to the syringe directly through the bung of the blood tube, whereupon the blood in the syringe then flowed into the blood tube. The syringe with the needle connected to it was then disconnected from the blood tube and discarded. The blood tube containing the blood specimen was already labelled with the Accused’s name and NRIC numbers. Dr Soon then appended his signature on two government seals. These were seals which had small perforations on them. He pasted one seal onto the blood tube and the cap of the blood tube⁹. Dr Soon explained that this was done to seal the blood tube and prevent tampering. He then pasted the other government seal on Exhibit P6¹⁰.

The blood tube containing the Accused’s blood specimen and Exhibit P6 were then placed inside a ziplock bag¹¹, while Exhibit P2 was stapled to the ziplock bag. Dr Soon then placed the ziplock bag into his own bag. After that he attended to the other suspects.

Subsequently Dr Soon contacted the courier company, namely Innovative Diagnostic (“ID”) which was assigned by HMG to collect, inter alia, the ziplock bag containing the Accused’s blood specimen and Exhibits P2 and P6, for despatch to the HMG office at the Police Cantonment Complex (“PCC”). The courier collected the ziplock bag from Dr Soon and brought them back to ID’s office¹². The next day, another courier then brought the same, together with other blood samples, to the HMG office at the PCC. There they were handed over to Lin Simin Jessie (“Jessie Lin”), a HMG administrator who was stationed there.

Jessie Lin confirmed that she had received a bag containing various ziplock bags, including the ziplock bag containing the Accused’s blood sample, from the courier on 30 March 2020 at the PCC¹³. She checked and confirmed that all the ziplock bags had not been tampered with. She then opened up the ziplock bags and checked their contents, including the ziplock bag containing the Accused’s blood sample. The checks included¹⁴ - Ensuring that the name and NRIC numbers on the blood tubes containing the blood samples matched the particulars on Exhibits P2 and P6 inside the ziplock bag. Ensuring that the seals on the blood tubes containing the blood samples were intact.

After she was satisfied that everything was in order, in relation to the Accused’s blood sample, she wrote down “Dr Joel” and the date “30.03.20” on a form titled “PIC Blood Transfer to HMG Office @ Police Cantonment Complex Form” (Exhibit P9 at page 7) after confirming that the Accused’s blood sample had been procured by Dr Soon. She then manually keyed in the Accused’s particulars into her computer system using the information written in Exhibit P2 as reference. Jessie Lin admitted that, in doing so, she had made a typographical error in relation to the Accused’s name. Specifically, she had typed the Accused’s name as “Mahaderan” instead of “Mahadevan”.

Thereafter, she printed out four stickers bearing the HMG logo and which contained the Accused’s particulars that she had typed in earlier. These four stickers contained the typographical error committed by Jessie Lin described earlier. However, the Accused’s NRIC numbers in the four stickers were correct. She pasted three of the four stickers each on the following¹⁵ - The blood tube containing the Accused’s blood sample. Exhibit P2. Exhibit P6.

After that, she placed the blood tube containing the Accused’s blood sample with Exhibits P2 and P6 in the ziplock bag and sealed it. She then placed the ziplock bag inside a fridge. On 1 April 2020, she took out the ziplock bag from the fridge, placed it into a cooler bag, together with other ziplock bags containing blood samples, and brought the cooler bag to the Health and Sciences Authority (“HSA”)¹⁶.

At HSA, Jessie Lin handed the bag over to Widodo Andreas (“Widodo”), an analyst with HSA’s Analytical Toxicology Laboratory. He tallied the name and identity card number on Exhibit P6 against those on the sticker found on the blood tube. He also confirmed that the seal on the tube was intact. He...