PUBLIC PROSECUTOR v CPS

1 The respondent was 16 years old on 27 June 2020, when he met with a 14-year-old girl (“the victim”) whom he was acquainted with. The victim was a friend and classmate of the respondent’s girlfriend; he had also attended the same secondary school as her. The respondent had seen an Instagram livestream of the victim drinking with her then-22-year-old boyfriend (“CPT”) at Admiralty Park and asked the victim if he could join the drinking session. The victim agreed. The victim consumed alcohol both before and after the respondent’s arrival, and eventually vomited and laid on the ground. The respondent first attempted to use his electric scooter to transport the victim to a toilet; this failed as she was unable to maintain her grip and fell off halfway. The respondent and CPT then carried the victim to a handicap toilet.

2 After the victim vomited in the handicap toilet, she heard the door being locked and the respondent and CPT talking to each other. CPT then removed the victim’s jacket and t-shirt before he digitally penetrated the victim’s vagina, as the respondent held her jacket over her face and held her down by her shoulders. The victim shouted at the respondent to go away and continued to struggle but did not object to the penetration as CPT was her boyfriend. The respondent then proceeded to rape the victim as CPT held her down, despite the victim struggling and crying out in protest.

3 The respondent had separately been charged for over 20 instances of theft, dishonest misappropriation of property, and mischief offences committed between 2017 and 2021. He was produced in court twice on 11 June 2020 and 22 June 2020 and was released on bail each time. On the latter occasion, the respondent’s bail amount was increased and he was warned that bail would no longer be offered should he commit any fresh offences.

4 The Judge in the High Court (“the Judge”) sentenced the respondent to Reformative Training (“RT”) for a minimum period of 12 months.

5 The Prosecution appealed against the Judge’s decision.

6 Whether rehabilitation maintains its primacy in the sentencing calculus where young offenders commit rape involves close scrutiny of the specific circumstances of the offence and the offender. In doing so, a broad heuristic is that as a general rule, neither probation nor RT is suitable in cases of rape, and that where an offender is of mature age and understanding, a custodial sentence should be imposed in the absence of exceptional circumstances: at [29].

7 Where Parliament and the common law are consistent that certain offences are serious and carry severe harm, a finding that rehabilitation is the predominant sentencing consideration where those offences are committed would be reserved to cases where exceptional circumstances are strong. Such exceptional circumstances would generally be limited to situations where few or no aggravating factors apply to the offence, where the offender’s involvement in the offence is extremely limited, and where the offender demonstrates good potential for reform: at [32].

8 Multiple aggravating factors were applicable to the respondent’s case. The victim was vulnerable by virtue of her young age and state of intoxication at the time, there was a group element to the offence, and the respondent had failed to use a condom: at [33]–[43].

9 There was no indication of any harm suffered by the victim beyond that suffered normally by victims of rape. All things being equal, although this level of harm would not in itself exclude the possibility of rehabilitation remaining the predominant sentencing consideration, it would be indicative of the baseline level of the offence’s seriousness – for which RT would not be suitable as a general rule: at [44].

10 Although the respondent was assessed to have multiple areas of need in various domains in his Reformative Training Suitability Report, the presence of these areas of need would not in itself preclude the possibility of rehabilitation remaining the predominant sentencing consideration: at [45].

11 More concerning was the attitude demonstrated by the respondent in his track record of offending and in his attitude towards his rape offence. As to the former, the respondent had been produced in court for bail proceedings related to outstanding charges for offences committed before his rape offence, and was warned that bail would no longer be offered should he commit any fresh offences. That the respondent committed the present rape offence despite these warnings spoke to a hardening of his ways. As to the latter, the respondent had been recorded by the psychologist authoring his Reformative Training Suitability Report as presenting with attitudes that minimised the responsibility of his actions and shifted the blame to the victim and his co-accused. The respondent’s explanation that he was merely narrating the incident to the psychologist from a “historical perspective” ie, at the time the offence, rather than at the time of the assessment, could not be accepted: at [46]–[50].

12 As rehabilitation had been displaced by deterrence as the predominant sentencing consideration, an imprisonment sentence alongside caning would be the appropriate sentence. The present offence lay within the low end of Band 2 of the framework in Ng Kean Meng Terence v Public Prosecutor [2017] 2 SLR 449. After consideration of offender-specific aggravating factors, the respondent’s plea of guilt and the respondent’s youth at the material time, a sentence of eight years’ imprisonment and three strokes of the cane was to be imposed: at [51]–[54].