PUBLIC PROSECUTOR v Chong Shiong Hui

Facts

Chong Shiong Hui pleaded guilty in the General Division of the High Court, in Criminal Case No 63 of 2024, to attempted murder under s 307(1) of the Penal Code. Two charges, for deflating the tyres of the victim's husband's car and switching off the electricity to her flat, were taken into consideration.

According to the admitted statement of facts, the accused and the victim, both married to others, had been in an affair since 2017. On 28 November 2019 she said she wanted a break. That night he drank, took Stilnox, and sent messages threatening to kill or hurt himself and her family. Early on 30 November 2019 he went to her home with a chopper and two tins of petrol, and later sent further threats with photographs of the weapons. When she agreed to meet him at his parents' home, he laid out the chopper, a kitchen knife and the petrol and took a glove for a better grip. When she arrived at 1.25 pm, he pulled her inside, shut the gate and attacked her with the chopper, a knife and a handsaw. After she escaped he chased her into the street and stamped on her after she fell, stopping only when her mother persuaded him. She suffered multiple wounds and skull fractures and was permanently disfigured. He was intoxicated at the time.

Issues

1. Whether rehabilitation displaced deterrence and retribution as the main sentencing considerations
2. What aggravating and mitigating factors were present
3. What sentence was appropriate in light of the precedents

Holding

The court sentenced the accused to 16 years' imprisonment and five strokes of the cane, backdated to his arrest on 30 November 2019. The accused has appealed against the sentence.

Reasoning

The Defence relied on family support, low risk of reoffending, a mental condition and a planned move to Beijing to argue for a lighter sentence of not more than ten years. The court held that in a violent crime of this kind, general deterrence and retribution came to the fore and displaced rehabilitation. Unlike Public Prosecutor v Soo Cheow Wee [2024] 3 SLR 972, there was no psychiatric report linking his condition to the attack, and the harm here was greater. Specific deterrence was not in play, as nothing showed a tendency to offend. The relationship history did not reduce his culpability, as he was the one who made it tumultuous.

The court found high culpability: persistent threats, planning and the luring and confining of the victim, a vicious attack with several weapons, stamping on her when she was down, voluntary intoxication, and the charges taken into consideration. Harm was serious: physical, psychological, and to public peace in a residential area. Her not pursuing follow-up treatment did not lessen it. The only real mitigation was his plea of guilt, and only a limited discount was warranted. His cooperation was ordinary, his restitution came too little too late, and character references carried little weight. The court viewed his job letter for Beijing as close to an abuse of process.

The court declined to treat PP v BPK [2018] 5 SLR 755 as a constraint, considering that sentence low, and found this case more serious than Shoo Ah San because of the luring, confinement, multiple weapons and escalation.

From the judgment