Public Prosecutor v Vitria Depsi Wahyuni (alias Fitriah)

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Chao Hick Tin JA
• Judgment Date: 07 November 2012
• Neutral Citation: [2012] SGCA 67
• Court: Court of Appeal (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Criminal Appeal No 2 of 2012
• Year: 2012
• Published date: 20 November 2012
• Hearing Date: 16 August 2012
• Plaintiff Counsel: Lau Wing Yum and Christina Koh (Attorney-General's Chambers)
• Defendant Counsel: Mohd Muzammil bin Mohd (Muzammil & Co)
• Subject Matter: Criminal Procedure and Sentencing
• Citation: [2012] SGCA 67

Chao Hick Tin JA (delivering the grounds of decision of the court):

This was an appeal by the Prosecution against a 10-year imprisonment term imposed by the High Court judge (“the Judge”) on the respondent, Vitria Depsi Wahyuni @ Fitriah (“Vitria”), for a charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder punishable under s 304(a) of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed) (“Penal Code”). The charge to which Vitria pleaded guilty was as follows:

... sometime between 8.00 p.m. on the 25th day of November 2009 and 3.15 a.m. on the 26th day of November of 2009, at No. 21 Farleigh Avenue, Singapore, did cause the death of one Sng Gek Wah (female / 87 years old), to wit, by strangling her to death, which act was done with the intention of causing such bodily injury as was likely to cause her death, and you thereby committed an offence of culpable homicide not amounting to murder punishable under section 304(a) of the Penal Code, Chapter 224.

On 16 August 2012, we allowed the appeal and enhanced Vitria’s sentence to 20 years’ imprisonment with effect from 28 November 2009 (being the date of her remand¹). We now give our reasons.

Factual background

The salient facts were set out in the Statement of Facts to which Vitria admitted without qualification. Vitria, who was from Indonesia, came to Singapore on 19 November 2009.² She started working for the deceased as a domestic worker on 21 November 2009.³ The deceased was 87 years of age at the time of her death and was living alone at No 21 Farleigh Avenue (“the residence”). Vitria was tasked to take care of the deceased and attend to the housework at the residence.⁴

Events leading to the deceased’s death

The fateful incident occurred a mere five days into Vitria’s employment with the deceased. According to Vitria, the deceased was difficult to please and particular about how the household chores were carried out. The deceased regularly reprimanded Vitria for her lapses in the household chores. On 25 November 2009, when Vitria was cleaning rusty grilles, the deceased chided her for not making them clean enough. Vitria felt angry and the thought of killing the deceased entered her mind. The deceased also called her “stupid” and “big eyes” when Vitria accidentally wet the toilet roll while washing the toilet later that day. The thought of killing the deceased recurred.

At 8 pm, as Vitria was preparing for bed, the thought of killing the deceased resurfaced. Although she knew that it was wrong to take a life, she felt angry at the deceased. At the time, the deceased was settling down on the sofa in the living room. At about 10 pm, Vitria stuffed two bed sheets into her pillow as she felt that her pillow was too small to smother the deceased. When Vitria found that the deceased had fallen asleep on the sofa in the living room, she placed the pillow over the deceased’s face and tried to smother her. The deceased woke up and put up a struggle. The pillow fell off. Vitria then tried to strangle the deceased. The deceased fell to the floor during the struggle. Vitria then shoved her right hand into the deceased’s mouth, hoping to silence her. The deceased continued to struggle and managed to push Vitria’s face to one side. Vitria felt angry and reached for a vase on the coffee table. With the vase, she struck the deceased forcefully on the right side of her forehead.⁵ The deceased groaned in pain. Vitria then placed her left hand into the deceased’s mouth and used her right hand to encircle the deceased’s throat and pressed hard until the deceased stopped moving.

Vitria then removed the bed sheets from her pillow and kept them in the cupboard upstairs. Having given some thought to the situation, and to exculpate herself, she decided that she would tell the police that the deceased had died after falling in the toilet. Pursuant to that thought, Vitria dragged the deceased to the toilet. However, she later thought that this did not seem “right” and dragged the deceased back to the hall where she had originally lain. She wiped the trail of blood on the floor and the blood stains on the toilet wall with her T-shirt. ⁶ She threw away her slippers, clothes, and pillow case which were all bloodstained. Vitria then “decided to put up a show and shouted for help”.⁷ The next morning, on 26 November 2009 at about 3.15 am, Vitria flagged down a taxi which was then driving past the residence. Although the taxi driver could not understand what Vitria was trying to convey due to the language barrier, he presumed that she was seeking assistance and called the police. The taxi driver lodged the First Information Report stating that “Maid discovered employer’s parent unresponsive”.⁸ An autopsy was subsequently performed on the deceased and the cause of death was certified to be asphyxia due to strangulation.⁹ The injuries found on the deceased included multiple cuts and bruises on her face, neck and limbs, and four broken ribs.¹⁰

Vitria was 16 years and 11 months old at the time of the offence. Although her passport and work permit stated that she was 23 years old, this was false.¹¹ Vitria managed to obtain a passport in Indonesia with this false age stated therein so that she would be eligible for employment as a domestic worker in Singapore.¹²

Psychiatric reports on Vitria

After her arrest, Vitria was examined by two psychiatrists. Dr Stephen Phang (“Dr Phang”), Senior Consultant Psychiatrist at the Institute of Mental Health (“IMH”), first examined Vitria on 9 December 2009, 18 December 2009, 23 December 2009 and 5 January 2010. Subsequently, Dr Parvathy Pathy (“Dr Pathy”), Senior Consultant Child Psychiatrist of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, IMH, examined Vitria on 29 January 2010, 4 February 2010, 9 February 2010 and 12 February 2010. Both Dr Phang and Dr Pathy also interviewed Joy Chan (“Joy”), the deceased’s granddaughter and de facto caregiver,¹³ and Binte Nur Aisyah (“Aisyah”), one of the deceased’s previous domestic workers.

In a report dated 11 January 2010, Dr Phang noted that Vitria was a divorcee with a one-and-half-year-old son which she had left in Indonesia in the care of her former mother-in-law. Vitria’s employment with the deceased was her first employment overseas.¹⁴ For a considerable part of her interview sessions with Dr Phang, Vitria recounted her grievances against the deceased. She particularly took offence at the deceased calling her “bodoh” (ie, “stupid” in Malay). In her first interview session with Dr Phang, Vitria admitted that the deceased never physically abused her. The circumstances under which the deceased had any form of physical contact with her were confined to instances where the deceased tapped the dorsum of her hand with a rice ladle when Vitria’s assistance during meal preparation was unsolicited, or where the deceased pulled her forearm to show her the errors she made in carrying out the household chores.¹⁵ However, in her second interview session with Dr Phang, Vitria alleged that the deceased had kicked her buttocks after she did not switch off the living room lights, but admitted (in her third interview session) that this was the only occasion of alleged physical abuse.¹⁶

Vitria also told Dr Phang that on the fourth day of her employment with the deceased, the deceased had allegedly suggested that Vitria return to Indonesia if she felt that she was unable to cope with the domestic chores.¹⁷ This comment made Vitria feel that “[her] dignity had been trampled [emphasis in original]”.¹⁸ Dr Phang also noted Aisyah’s complaints of the deceased’s frequent nagging. However, Aisyah also stated that the deceased had never physically abused her during her employment.¹⁹ Joy admitted to Dr Phang that the deceased was “impatient” and could be “rather loud in her speech” as she was hard of hearing. The deceased’s previous domestic workers told Joy of the deceased’s tendency to nag but they did not tell her that they were at the receiving end of physical abuse.²⁰

As regards the death of the deceased, Vitria admitted to Dr Phang that while she killed the deceased, she maintained that the deceased had attacked her first. However, the accounts she gave at her interview sessions with Dr Phang on the events leading to the deceased’s death were inconsistent.²¹ In his report, Dr Phang concluded that Vitria did not suffer from any mental illness and that “her mood was certainly not depressed” nor was she “labouring under any cognitive deficits”. He found that she was “cognizant of the nature and wrongfulness of her alleged act” and was fit to plead.²²

Dr Pathy made similar observations on Vitria’s family background and relationship with the deceased in her first report dated 12 February 2010. She noted that Vitria found the deceased “fussy, petty, [and] impatient”. Vitria had also claimed that while she tried to meet the deceased’s expectations, the deceased remained displeased with her no matter what she did.²³ Vitria complained to Dr Pathy that the deceased called her names, but confirmed that the only instance of “physical abuse” was when the deceased kicked her buttocks after she forgot to switch off the living room lights.²⁴ Joy mentioned to Dr Pathy that a total of seven domestic workers had worked for the deceased since 2003 and that conflicts had arisen between the deceased and her domestic workers because of communication problems and the deceased’s expectations about cleanliness.²⁵ Joy also advised Dr Pathy that Dede Siti Hodijah (“Dede”), the deceased’s domestic worker before Vitria, “tried to strangle the deceased during an episode of psychotic decompensation”.²⁶ Dede was later admitted to IMH and diagnosed with “acute psychosis”.²⁷ However, there was another domestic worker, Siti, who got along well and worked for the deceased for three years.²⁸ As for Aisyah, she informed Dr Pathy that the deceased frequently nagged and called her “pig, dog, dark like Bangladeshi, poor” and on...