HABEEB ZALEENA D/O PALLIVILAKAM KADER HABEEB MOHAMED v PUBLIC PROSECUTOR

Facts

On the morning of 30 September 2020 Ms Habeeb Zaleena d/o Pallivilakam Kader Habeeb Mohamed was driving along Woodlands Road and made a discretionary right turn at the junction with Kranji Expressway. She turned swiftly without slowing or stopping in the turning pocket to check for oncoming traffic, and hit a 47-year-old dispatch rider who was going straight with the green light and was within her field of vision. He was thrown onto the pavement, his motorcycle struck a waiting lorry, and his storage box was flung towards the junction island, narrowly missing a pedestrian on a motorised bicycle. He suffered fractures to both legs and a degloving injury to the right foot, spent 119 days in hospital with multiple surgeries, was left with a permanent foot injury needing modified footwear, and had more than eight months of further leave.

She pleaded guilty to driving without reasonable consideration under s 65(1)(b) of the Road Traffic Act, punishable under s 65(3)(a). A District Judge applied the framework in Chen Song v Public Prosecutor [2025] 3 SLR 509, found greater harm and lower culpability, and sentenced her to 11 weeks' imprisonment and a five-year disqualification. She appealed in Magistrate's Appeal No 9175 of 2025/01, seeking a fine.

Issues

1. Whether the District Judge erred in classifying the harm as greater harm under the Chen Song framework.
2. Whether the culpability was correctly placed at the upper end of lower culpability, including the relevance of her eye condition.
3. Whether mitigating factors, the 2025 amendments to the Road Traffic Act and comparable precedents were properly considered.

Holding

Kannan Ramesh JAD dismissed the appeal on 20 March 2026 and later gave full grounds. The sentence of 11 weeks' imprisonment with five years' disqualification from driving all classes of vehicles was not manifestly excessive and was upheld.

Reasoning

On harm, all three primary factors were present. The degree of permanence asks only whether the injury itself is permanent, and the statement of facts said it was. The 119 days in hospital and the further months of leave showed substantial impact on a dispatch rider unable to work; the judge added that the post-discharge leave, which the District Judge had not considered, was also relevant, and stressed that the harm assessment is holistic. Potential harm and property damage were also made out. The video footage was played without objection before she admitted the statement of facts, and the potential harm was apparent from the admitted facts in any case.

On culpability, the Highway Code and Traffic Police guidance require a driver turning right to wait in the turning pocket and give way. Her breach was best treated as flouting traffic rules rather than a high degree of carelessness, but either way only one culpability factor applied. Her eye condition was irrelevant because she had admitted not keeping a lookout and never said she looked but failed to see; following Anita Damu v Public Prosecutor [2020] 3 SLR 825, expert evidence cannot supply a missing fact. The accident reconstruction expert also strayed beyond his expertise, and his report was incomplete. Greater harm with lower culpability placed the case in Band 2, above the custodial threshold.

On mitigation, a clean record is neutral, and her long teaching career deserved only modest weight given Parliament's emphasis on deterrence. The reduction from a starting point of 6 to 8 months to 16 weeks before the 30% plea discount was, if anything, generous, though the Prosecution had not appealed. The 2025 amendments, effective 12 June 2025, did not apply retrospectively to a 2020 offence, and unreported or pre-Chen Song precedents carried little weight.

From the judgment