Public Prosecutor v Yap Kian Sing

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Marvin Bay
• Judgment Date: 06 July 2023
• Neutral Citation: [2023] SGDC 132
• Court: District Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: District Arrest Case DAC-905832-2021 & Ors, Magistrate’s Appeals No MA-9121-2023-01
• Hearing Date: 20 April 2023,22 May 2023,29 May 2023,16 June 2023
• Citation: [2023] SGDC 132
• Year: 2023
• Plaintiff Counsel: Yvonne Poon (Attorney-General's Chambers)
• Defendant Counsel: Wee Hong Shern (Ong & Co LLC)
• Subject Matter: Criminal Law,Penal Code,Criminal intimidation- threats to fatally harm victim's child,Sentencing,Protection from Harassment Act,Unlawful stalking-Sentencing,Statutory Offences,Misuse of Drugs Act,Trafficking of methamphetamine
• Published date: 25 August 2023

District Judge Marvin Bay:

INTRODUCTION

The charges

The accused person, Yap Kian Sing, Male, aged 49 (date of birth: 20 October 1973) pleaded guilty to five charges. Three charges related to drug offences and the two others involved criminal intimidation and unlawful stalking of his then partner, “Mdm N”¹ aged 32 at the material time. The most serious of the drug charges related to a charge of trafficking of methamphetamine² which was framed as follows:

(Mr Yap is) are charged that (he), on 18 August 2021 at about 2.55pm, inside Room No. 412 of Hotel 81 Tristar, No. 1 Onan Road, Singapore, did traffic in a Controlled Drug listed in Class A of the First Schedule to the Misuse of Drugs Act, Chapter 185, to wit, by having in your possession for the purpose of trafficking 12 packets containing not less than 323.57 grams of crystalline substance which was pulverized, homogenised and analysed and found to contain not less than 217.94 grams of methamphetamine, without authorization under the said Act or the Regulations made thereunder and you have thereby committed an offence under Section 5(1)(a) read with Section 5(2) of the Misuse of Drugs Act, Chapter 185 and punishable under Section 33(1) of the Misuse of Drugs Act, Chapter 185.

[Emphasis added]

Background to proceeded drug offence charges

The offence of trafficking under section 5(1)(a) of the Misuse of Drugs Act (MDA) of the quantity found carried a mandatory minimum term of 20 years’ imprisonment and 15 strokes of the cane and a maximum term of 30 years’ imprisonment and caning of 15 strokes. After a thorough sentencing hearing where submissions extended through three sessions, he received a sentence of 25 years’ imprisonment, as well as the mandatory minimum of 15 strokes of the cane. Mr Yap also faced charges for repeat consumption of methamphetamine³ and possession of 17.75g of the same drug⁴. Mr Yap was sentenced to the mandatory minimum of three years’ imprisonment for the consumption charge and eight months’ imprisonment for the possession charge. The latter two charges are less germane to Mr Yap’s appeal against sentence as these were ordered to run concurrently, and thus do not feature in the accretion of consecutive sentences towards the global sentence which Mr Yap is appealing as manifestly excessive.

The non-drug offence charges

Mr Yap had pleaded guilty to two charges, the first being a criminal intimidation charge⁵ under section 506 of the Penal Code (2008 Rev Ed), with the charge which was framed as follows:

(Mr Yap is) charged that (he), on 22 March 2021, at about 2.53pm, in Singapore, did commit criminal intimidation, to wit, by sending a text message to one “Mdm N”(‘’the victim’’) stating ‘‘ I cannot chop u will go your son school throw him down we see am I a pussy’’ where the threat was to cause death or grievous hurt to the victim’s son, and (he has) thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 506 (2nd limb) of the Penal Code, Chapter 224.

[Emphasis added]

It should be noted that offences under section 506 PC which were aggravated by threats to cause death or grievous hurt would be punishable with a term of up to seven years’ imprisonment.

The other non-drug charge⁶ involved the offence of stalking under section 7(1) of the Protection from Harassment Act, Chapter 256A, with the charge specifying:

(Mr Yap is) charged that (he), between August 2020 and September 2020, did unlawfully stalk one (Mdm N) (“the victim”), female / then-32 years old, by engaging in a course of conduct which involved acts associated with stalking, to wit: 1. On 21 Aug 2020 at about 11.30am, disrupting the victim in the course of her delivery work at (stated) Lady Hill Road and threatening to do something to her if she refused to come back to (his) residence; 2. On 26 Aug 2020 at about 3.25pm, sending an e-mail to the victim with a photograph of knives asking her which she preferred or he would choose one for her; 3. On 5 Sep 2020, creating a Facebook account “Rai Boleh” and posting the victim’s personal information online; 4. On 10 Sep 2020, creating a Instagram account “shawhyte_nazmify108” using the victim’s identity card as a profile picture and sending messages to her son to pass on to her; 5. On 27 Sep 2020 at about 8pm, sending the victim a string of text messages with profanities and threats;

which caused harassment to the victim, and (he) intended to cause harassment to the victim, and (he has) thereby committed an offence under Section 7(1) of the Protection from Harassment Act, Chapter 256A, punishable under Section 7(6) of the same Act.

In relation to this offence, it would be apropos to set out the provision for reference:

Section 7 of the Protection from Harassment Act, Chapter 256A, provides that: (1) No person shall unlawfully stalk another person. (2) Subject to subsection (7), an individual or entity (called in this section the accused) unlawfully stalks another person (referred to for the purposes of this section as the victim) if the accused engages in a course of conduct which — (a) involves acts or omissions associated with stalking; (b) causes harassment, alarm or distress to the victim; and (c) the accused — (i) intends to cause harassment, alarm or distress to the victim; or (ii) knows or ought reasonably to know is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to the victim.

This offence is punishable with a fine not exceeding $5,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or to both.

ADMITTED FACTS

The following is a precis of Statement of Facts and is a condensation of the facts admitted by Mr Yap, upon his plea of guilt.

Background to the criminal intimidation and stalking charges (DAC-905832-2021 & MAC-905458-2021)

Mdm N, aged 32, had on 10 September 2020, lodged a police report stating that Mr Yap had been carrying out a series of harassing actions against her. These activities included his following her on her job, sending her threatening messages including with pictures of knives, posting her number on websites for sexual services, and placing her personal details on other social networking sites. Mr Yap had also created social media accounts to befriend her son, her son’s friend, and her son’s teacher. The incidents had taken place at various locations in Singapore.

Investigations reveal that Mr Yap and victim had been in a relationship around 2019 – 2020. The relationship had ceased with a break-up around June – July 2020, with Mdm N moving out of Mr Yap’s residence. Mr Yap could not countenance this new state of affairs and started to send her harassing messages and stalk her. Mdm N’s attempts to block him were to no avail, as Mr Yap’s countermeasure was simply to create new social media accounts to text her son instead. This ensures that his messages would still reach her. Mr Yap went further to post personal details about her, including compromising and embarrassing details as her previous convictions, along with her social media handles, images of the front and back of her NRIC card, and her phone number. These details had appeared in Mr Yap’s personal Instagram account (as stated) and Facebook account “Rai Boleh”.

Mr Yap would also resort to using his friends’ phone numbers to contact the victim after she blocked him. It was a particularly concerning aspect of this case that Mr Yap’s harassing messages to her escalated after Mdm N had called for police assistance.

Facts relating to 2nd charge in for criminal intimidation under s 506 PC (DAC-905832-2021)

Upon Mr Yap’s realisation in January 2021 that Mdm N had intentionally kept her new residential address from him to avoid his harassing her at that address, the accused began a campaign of issuing threats. The message which formed the basis of the charge was issued after a series of threatening messages. On 22 March 2021 at or about 2.53pm, Mr Yap sent Mdm N a text message on the WhatsApp mobile messaging application: “I cannot chop u will go your son school throw him down we see am I a pussy”.

Victim’s belief that accused could and would carry out the threat against her son

The victim interpreted the threat to be directed at her own 13-year-old son.⁷. Mr Yap has admitted to knowing that the victim cared deeply for her son and acknowledged that he had sent the message above to cause her alarm. It was also the case that Mdm N was fully cognisant of Mr Yap’s drug habit and held an honest belief that Mr Yap was entirely capable of executing his threat, which exacerbated her sense of alarm. Mr Yap’s threats of injury to Mdm N’s son, with intent to cause alarm to her, constituted an offence of criminal intimidation, and which was punishable under the second limb of section 506 of the Penal Code.

Facts relating to the 7th charge for unlawful stalking under s 7 PFHA (MAC 905458/2021)

Police investigations have established that between August 2020 and September 2020, Mr Yap had persistently and unlawfully stalked Mdm N by engaging in a course of conduct which involved acts associated with said stalking on at least five different occasions.

This course of conduct involved the following⁸: a. On 21 August 2020 at about 11.30am, the victim was delivering items to an address at Lady Hill Road when Mr Yap approached her, disrupted her from carrying out her work by opening and closing her lorry doors, and threatened that he would do something to her if she refused to return to his residence; b. On 26 August 2020 at about 3.25pm, the victim received an email from Mr Yap containing a photograph of two knives, stating, “update me which u prefer if not I choose for u”. He had sent this image to her to scare her into replying to him; c. On 5 September 2020, Mr Yap created a Facebook account by the name of “Rai Boleh” and posted the front and back of the victim’s NRIC and listed her previous cases with the police through the account;

d. On...