Public Prosecutor v Zareena Begum d/o P A M Basheer Ahamed
| Jurisdiction | Singapore |
| Judge | Brenda Tan |
| Judgment Date | 30 July 2021 |
| Neutral Citation | [2021] SGDC 140 |
| Court | District Court (Singapore) |
| Docket Number | DAC-912092-2018, (MA-9885-2020-01) |
| Published date | 06 August 2021 |
| Year | 2021 |
| Hearing Date | 17 July 2020,02 March 2020,18 June 2019,28 September 2020,26 November 2020,03 March 2020,06 May 2019,19 June 2019,13 November 2020 |
| Plaintiff Counsel | Ng Jun Chong (Attorney-General's Chambers) |
| Defendant Counsel | Dhillon Surinder Singh & Suppiah Krishnamurthi (Dhillon & Panoo LLC) |
| Subject Matter | Criminal Law and Sentencing,Offences,Voluntarily causing grievous by means of a heated substance,Hot water,Penal Code,Sentencing |
| Citation | [2021] SGDC 140 |
The accused, Zareena Begum, a 50-year-old female Singaporean, claimed trial to one charge of voluntarily causing grievous hurt to PW5 Shafarudin Bin Ahmad (“the victim”), a 47-year-old male Singaporean, by means of a heated substance under s 326 of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed).
At the conclusion of the trial, I found the accused guilty as charged and I convicted her accordingly. I sentenced her to four years’ imprisonment for the offence.
The accused, who was represented, being dissatisfied with her conviction and sentence has appealed against my decision. She is currently on bail pending her appeal.
I now set out the reasons for my decision.
The charge The charge that the accused claimed trial to read as follows:
CHARGE (Amended)
The accused and the victim were boyfriend and girlfriend. At the time of the incident, they had been in the relationship for about 11 years. On 4 July 2017, the victim went to the accused’s flat for dinner. At or about 1.30am the next morning, there was an incident involving hot water where the victim was badly scalded (“the hot water incident”). It was not in dispute that the victim suffered grievous hurt or that the grievous hurt was caused by means of a heated substance namely hot water. The dispute was over how the hot water incident occurred. According to the victim, he was sleeping on the sofa in the living room when the accused poured hot water on his groin area. According to the accused, the incident happened in the kitchen where the hot water in a mug she was holding accidentally spilled onto the victim’s groin area when he pulled her arm. Who was telling the truth?
There issue before me was whether the Prosecution had proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused had intentionally poured hot water onto the victim’s groin area while he was asleep thereby causing his burn injuries.
Undisputed factsThe accused was a divorcee. She worked as a customer service agent with Singapore Airport Terminal Services (SATS). The victim was a “service man” who carried out services for HDB flats which required repairs, wiring jobs, and plumbing works. The accused met the victim in 20061 through a colleague when she needed some works done at her flat. The victim then started asking the accused out on dates. The accused knew that the victim was married with children, but the victim told her that his marriage was on the rocks and that he was in the process of divorcing his wife. They thus began their romantic relationship and started having sex six months after they met.
It was a tumultuous relationship during which the victim promised to divorce his wife and marry the accused, but it did not materialise. They broke up several times but after a while, they would patch up because they loved each other very much. During the victim’s on and off love affair with the accused, he divorced his wife and re-married her. The marriage search results from the Registry of Muslim Marriages at Defence exhibit D9 as at 20 June 2019 showed that the victim registered his marriage to his wife twice, the first time in September 1999 and the second time in September 2007.
The accused was residing with her two sons while the victim was staying at his mother’s place. The couple did not live together during their relationship. The victim would visit the accused at her flat and she would cook for him at times. The victim would go home at about 10pm or 11pm. Sometimes he would leave at about 2am and he would not wake the accused if she were asleep. If he were to sleep over which was rare, usually he would sleep at the sofa in the living room.
On 4 July 2017, at about 10pm, the victim went to the accused’s flat for dinner. They were the only ones in the flat. What happened that night before the victim fell asleep at the sofa in the accused’s living room was not disputed. What was in dispute was what happened after the victim fell asleep at the sofa and when he awoke in the morning at about 1.30am on 5 July 2017 during which the hot water incident occurred.
As a result of the hot water incident, the victim suffered 12% Total Body Surface Area (TBSA) of hot water burns over his bilateral upper and medial thigh with extension to left lateral buttock and perianal region, upper torso, left hand palm and finger tips which required a trial of artificial skin and split skin grafting. He was hospitalised for 26 days from 5 July 2017 to 31 July 2017 and given medical leave for 39 days from 5 July 2017 until 12 August 2017. During this period, he was not able to perform his normal pursuits. His injuries would lead to permanent scarring (see medical report at exhibit P2 and Inpatient Discharge Summary at exhibit P1).
The victim did not lodge any police report regarding the hot water incident. It was Singapore General hospital (“SGH”) which warded the victim for his burns that reported the case to the police on 5 July 2017 at 5.54pm (see the Case Summary Form at exhibit P8).
After the hot water incident, there was no contact between the victim and the accused until 21 August 2017, one and a half months later, when they reconciled. They eventually ended their relationship and stopped contacting each other altogether after 21 January 2019 as shown by the last call entry in the call records obtained from the accused’s handphone in exhibit D8, page 122.
In the meantime, the accused was arrested on 19 March 2018 for committing an offence under s 326 of the Penal Code in relation to the hot water incident (see arrest report in exhibit P7). The accused was charged in court on 23 March 2018. On 5 July 2018, the police visited the accused’s flat to take photographs of the scene. There were 26 photographs taken (see the photographs in exhibit P4(1) to (26)).
The victim’s evidenceThe victim testified that on 4 July 2017, after he finished his work at about 10pm, he went over to the accused’s flat. They sat at the sofa in the living room and watched some movies on the television together. He felt sleepy and fell asleep on the sofa. He could not recall what time he dozed off. He awoke when he felt pain at his groin and lap. He testified that he felt very hot and was in pain and it seemed like something was on his lap and groin. He saw that his pants and groin part were wet. When he touched his groin area, his hands became wet and red as if they had been scalded by hot water. He immediately stood up and jumped all over the place to try to clear the excess liquid on his lap. He then removed his pants and saw redness on both his thighs. He thought it could be due to either hot water or acid although he believed it was more likely to be hot water. The victim said that he had experienced the feeling of hot water before but the pain he was going through felt like “acid pain” which he had also encountered previously in the service industry. He described the pain as “way too much” and the “feeling is very bad”. He was wearing light colour pants that day and the liquid on his groin was colourless and had no smell.
The victim said that as he was sleeping, he did not know how the accused poured the colourless odourless liquid on his groin. He told the court that when he was woken up by the pain, he saw the accused standing near the sofa, so to him, it was the accused who had poured the liquid on his groin. The victim identified the sofa he was sleeping on as the black sofa shown in the photographs in exhibits P4(4) to (6). He told the court that he was sleeping flat on his back on the sofa, facing the ceiling with his legs stretched out towards the main door. He testified that the accused was standing just beside the sofa where his legs were3. The victim could not recall the facial expression on the accused. He said that after he removed his pants, he asked the accused, “Why you do this to me?” but he could not remember her response4.
After the victim had removed his pants and underwear, he went out of the flat to grab a towel that was hanging outside to cover himself as he was naked. He then returned to the flat to grab his belongings before he ran to the roadside to hail a taxi to bring him to SGH. At SGH, the victim told the doctors that his girlfriend poured hot water on him and he was in pain and would need painkillers. The nurses gave him three injections for his pain.
The victim said that he was in such great pain that he was more concerned about himself than about the accused and what she was thinking of. He said that he could not recall why the accused would pour hot water on his groin.
The learned Deputy Public Prosecutor (“DPP”) then applied under s 161 of the Evidence Act (Cap 97, 1997 Rev Ed) to refresh the victim’s memory by showing him the statement he gave to the police about two weeks after the hot water incident when he was still in the hospital. After refreshing his memory, the victim told the court that when he asked the accused, “Why you do this to me?”, her reply was, “Serve you right”. He understood it to mean that maybe he was at fault and that he had done something to hurt her.
Having refreshed his memory, the victim told the court that it seemed that the accused had seen the messages his friend, Linda sent him and she was unhappy about them which was why she poured hot water on his groin5. The...
To continue reading
Request your trial