HALEEM BATHUSA BIN ABDUL RAHIM v PUBLIC PROSECUTOR

Facts

Early on 1 February 2020, Haleem Bathusa bin Abdul Rahim, a property agent, swerved his BMW out of its lane in front of another driver after leaving the Bukit Timah Expressway. The other driver sounded his horn, words were exchanged, and the two drove on until both stopped near Hillview Community Centre. CCTV footage showed the driver from the front car punching the other driver, who fell, then hitting and kicking him on the ground and continuing as he tried to back away, before driving off. A taxi driver who stopped saw the injured man bleeding and called the police with the licence plate number the injured man gave him, which was traced to the appellant's car.

The victim was diagnosed with contusions to his hand, eyelid and nose. He died before trial in unrelated circumstances, and his police statement was admitted. The appellant denied being the assailant and said he acted in self-defence. A District Judge, in [2022] SGMC 63, convicted him of voluntarily causing hurt under s 323 of the Penal Code and sentenced him to five weeks' imprisonment. He appealed against conviction and sentence in Magistrate's Appeal No 9184 of 2022/01, heard by Vincent Hoong J.

Issues

1. Whether the appellant was the driver who assaulted the victim in the CCTV footage.
2. Whether the appellant acted in self-defence or under grave and sudden provocation.
3. Whether the case was one of road rage and what sentence was appropriate.
4. Whether fleeing the scene by car was an aggravating factor and whether a driving disqualification should be ordered.

Holding

The High Court dismissed the appeal against conviction and sentence. It set aside the five-week term, imposed seven weeks' imprisonment instead, and disqualified the appellant from holding a driving licence for nine months from his release.

Reasoning

The judge found the appellant's arguments on conviction lacked merit. The timing, the matching sequence of events in his own statement, the licence plate, and the witnesses all placed him in the footage, and his own submissions assumed he was there. He was the driver from the front car, the attack was one-sided, and in his statement he admitted punching the victim twice in the face; his claim that "punch" meant blocking was rejected. There was no evidence of a shiny object or that the victim struck first, and a person defending himself would hardly flee without reporting. Vulgarities on the road are not grave and sudden provocation.

The dispute arose from shared use of the road, so it was road rage under Public Prosecutor v Lim Yee Hua and another appeal [2017] SGHC 308, calling for deterrence. Applying Low Song Chye v Public Prosecutor [2019] 5 SLR 526 with the upper end of Band 1 extrapolated to six weeks, harm was low but the face was targeted, and culpability was not low given an assault of more than 40 seconds on a man who did not fight back.

The District Judge had not given enough weight to the appellant driving away despite attempts to block him, which the court treated as a deliberate attempt to avoid identification. Fleeing by car will not always aggravate, but here it did, together with a record of speeding compositions, a 2012 refusal to give a breath specimen and no remorse. Those factors also justified a disqualification order under s 42 of the Road Traffic Act 1961.

From the judgment