See Li Quan Mendel v Public Prosecutor

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Sundaresh Menon CJ
• Judgment Date: 30 June 2020
• Neutral Citation: [2020] SGCA 61
• Plaintiff Counsel: Suang Wijaya and Koh Wen Rui, Genghis (Eugene Thuraisingam LLP)
• Date: 30 June 2020
• Docket Number: Criminal Appeal No 34 of 2019
• Hearing Date: 30 June 2020
• Subject Matter: Criminal Procedure and Sentencing,Sentencing,Young offenders
• Year: 2020
• Defendant Counsel: Gail Wong and Sheryl Yeo (Attorney-General's Chambers)
• Court: Court of Appeal (Singapore)
• Citation: [2020] SGCA 61
• Published date: 04 July 2020

Sundaresh Menon CJ (delivering the judgment of the court ex tempore): Introduction

The sentencing of young offenders generally proceeds first from the level of principle, and afterward from the level of practicability. Where rehabilitative sentences are concerned, it is meaningless to speak of their appropriateness to the young offender unless the dominant sentencing consideration in the case at hand is rehabilitation. The appellant, See Li Quan, Mendel, appeals against the sentence of imprisonment and caning that was imposed by the High Court judge (“the Judge”) on the basis that reformative training should have been ordered, even though the Judge found that rehabilitation had been displaced as the presumptive primary sentencing consideration given the gravity of his crime and the harm caused (see Public Prosecutor v See Li Quan Mendel [2019] SGHC 255 (“the GD”)). For the reasons that follow, we dismiss the appeal.

Background facts

The facts are undisputed. The appellant was 17 years old at the time of the offences. He pleaded guilty to one charge each of robbery by night, rape, and theft in dwelling, and consented to another eight offences being taken into consideration for the purpose of sentencing (“the TIC charges”).

The proceeded offences were committed in the course of a scheme devised by the appellant and two co-offenders, Yong and Chow, to steal money from sex workers. The trio would procure the services of sex workers at one of their residences, and while one of them posed as a customer, the other two would either extort money from the victim by pretending to be loan sharks, or steal from the victim’s bag while she was in the shower. The robbery and rape charges involved the same victim, V1, a 53-year-old Singaporean woman who provided massage and sexual services and also brokered engagements for other sex workers.

On 1 October 2017, the appellant had contacted V1 to provide sexual services at his residence. V1 passed the engagement on to another sex worker, who failed to show up at the appellant’s residence. Angered by this, the appellant wanted to take revenge on V1. On 2 October 2017, the appellant lured V1 to Yong’s residence with an offer of $900 for sexual services. After V1 arrived at Yong’s residence, the appellant and Chow entered the house pretending to be loan sharks, and demanded money from Yong and V1. The appellant carried a rod and also brought a chopper with him. During the staged altercation, the appellant passed the rod to Chow and took out the chopper, which he pointed at V1 while Chow removed cash and other items from V1’s handbag. To this point, all the acts done by the appellant were in furtherance of the common intention of the trio.

When V1 asked to leave, the appellant told her to remove all her clothes first, and he asked Yong and Chow to leave the room. V1 did as the appellant directed as he was still holding on to the chopper. The appellant told V1 he would not allow her to leave unless she agreed to have sex with him. V1 did not dare to refuse out of fear for her safety. The appellant raped V1, and only afterwards was V1 allowed to leave the residence without her valuables. The appellant’s co-offenders were not aware that the appellant had raped V1.

The theft charge was a separate incident that took place before the robbery and rape charges, and involved a different victim (“V2”). Sometime in September 2017, the trio contacted V2 to provide sexual services at the appellant’s residence. The appellant paid $600 to V2 upfront, and had consensual sex with her. While V2 was in the toilet, the appellant’s co-offenders stole $670 from V2’s handbag. V2 only discovered that her money was missing after she left the residence, and she was unable to contact the appellant again.

The decision below

In sentencing a young offender, the Judge was mindful of the two-stage framework set out in Public Prosecutor v Mohammad Al-Ansari bin Basri [2008] 1 SLR(R) 449 (“Al-Ansari”). The court must first consider whether rehabilitation remains the dominant consideration, and if so, it then considers how it may best achieve this consideration. Applying the first stage of the Al-Ansari framework, the Judge found that the presumptive emphasis on rehabilitation had been displaced in this case. Robbery and rape were serious offences; they were further aggravated in the present case because of the threat of violence by the appellant’s use of a chopper, and the vulnerability of V1 as a sex worker. The offences were therefore sufficiently serious that deterrence displaced rehabilitation as the dominant sentencing consideration (GD at [48]).

The next question the Judge asked herself was whether, despite the need for deterrence in this case, the appellant’s capacity for rehabilitation was sufficiently high that rehabilitation ought to remain at the fore. The Judge concluded that the appellant’s circumstances did not demonstrate a particularly strong capacity for rehabilitation. Among other things, she had regard to the number of TIC charges, the appellant’s escalating trajectory of criminal behaviour since being administered a conditional warning in 2016, and his deliberation in carrying out the robbery and rape (GD at [60]). The Judge therefore held that rehabilitation was not the dominant sentencing consideration, and declined to call for a reformative training suitability report (GD at [61]).

Nonetheless, the Judge noted that in calibrating the sentences of imprisonment and caning, the rehabilitation of the...