Yusoff bin Hassan and Others v Public Prosecutor

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judgment Date: 25 May 1992
• Date: 25 May 1992
• Docket Number: Magistrate's Appeal No 60/91/01
• Court: High Court (Singapore)

Yusoff bin Hassan and others

Plaintiff

and

Public Prosecutor

Defendant

[1992] SGHC 135

Yong Pung How CJ

Magistrate's Appeal No 60/91/01

High Court

Criminal Procedure and Sentencing–Sentencing–Forms of punishment–Corrective training and preventive detention–Principles of sentencing–Applicability of consecutive and concurrent sentences of imprisonment–Section 12 of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cap 68, 1985 Rev Ed)

The three appellants were each convicted of various robbery-related offences in the same trial and were sentenced to preventive detention or corrective training in lieu of imprisonment. The trial judge meted out the following sentences: (a) 12 years' preventive detention in total for the first appellant; (b) 14 years' preventive detention in total for the second appellant; and (c) eight years' corrective training in total for the third appellant. The appellants were also each sentenced to the maximum total of 24 strokes of the cane and ordered to undergo two years' police supervision. The appellants appealed against the sentences.

Held, allowing the appeals of the first and second appellants, and varying the sentence of the third appellant:

(1) The judge below erred in 2 respects: (a) for each of the appellants, the terms of preventive training or corrective training awarded was below the statutory minimum prescribed; and (b) the appropriate period of preventive detention and corrective training were imposed as if they were sentences of imprisonment, to be consecutive or concurrent when there were no provisions equivalent to ss 17 and 18 of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cap 68, 1985 Rev Ed) (“CPC”): at [7] and [8].

(2) Corrective training and preventive detention should be ordered in lieu of the aggregate sentence of imprisonment which the court would otherwise have been minded to impose. The ordering of consecutive or concurrent sentences of imprisonment therefore clearly did not apply. Also, besides the increased length of custody in a regime of corrective training or preventive detention, there were different rules relating to the nature and termination of custody. Sentences of imprisonment and sentences of corrective training and preventive prevention were governed by different statutes: at [11] and [12].

(3) The first appellant's sentence of a total of 12 years' preventive detention was reduced to a single sentence of ten years. The second appellant's sentence of 14 years' preventive detention was reduced to a single sentence of 12 years. As for the third appellant, the nature of the sentence of corrective training was altered from a total of eight years to a single sentence for the same period: at [14].

R v Albury [1951] 1 KB 680; (1951) 35 Cr App R 12; [1951] 1 All ER 491 (refd)

Criminal Procedure Code (Cap 68, 1985 Rev Ed) s 12 (consd);ss 11 (3), 17, 18, 230, 256 (c), Sched C

Criminal Procedure (Corrective Training and Preventive Detention) Rules (Cap 68, R2, 1990 Ed)

Penal Code (Cap 224, 1985 Rev Ed) ss 392, 394, 397, 506

Prisons Act (Cap 247, 1985 Rev Ed)

Criminal Justice Act 1948 (c 58) (UK) (repealed) ss 21 (1), 21 (2)

Appellants...