Public Prosecutor v Nguyen Ngoc Giau

Nguyen Ngoc Giau, a 43-year-old Vietnamese national and Singapore permanent resident, lived with her partner Cho Wang Keung, known to her as Peter, in his flat in Ang Mo Kio, where another tenant, Tan Cheng Mun, also stayed. Their relationship was marked by quarrels and fights. The Prosecution's case was that she was upset after a female beer promoter visited the flat on 12 July 2021. On 14 July 2021 she drank beer alone in the flat through the day, called the deceased repeatedly without answer, sent him angry messages and recorded herself crying and speaking of not wanting to live.

At about 12.50am on 15 July 2021 the deceased returned with Mr Tan. She confronted the deceased in the corridor, filming on her phone and demanding where he had been drinking; he asked Mr Tan to call the police to take her away. She went into the flat and came out with a yellow-handled knife. Mr Tan photographed her holding the deceased by the neck with a knife in her hand, and called the police again. Police found both of them in a pool of blood. The deceased, who had 30 external injuries, died later that morning from stab wounds to the neck, chest and back. She was tried in the High Court in Criminal Case No 24 of 2025 for murder under s 300(c) of the Penal Code. She did not deny the stabbing but relied on intoxication and sudden fight.

1. Whether full weight should be given to the accused's admissions in her police statements, which she retracted at trial.
2. Whether the accused intended to inflict the fatal stab wounds, or was too intoxicated to form that intention under s 86(2) of the Penal Code.
3. Whether the partial defence of sudden fight under Exception 4 to s 300 of the Penal Code was made out.

The judge gave full weight to the accused's statements. Her complaints about the Vietnamese interpreter were raised late, identified no mistranslated passage and were contradicted by her repeated confirmation that she had no objection. The investigating officer had recorded both the cues he gave and the points she could not remember, and the statements held details only she would know, such as choosing the knife she had sharpened because the others were blunt. The defence expert accepted that false memories are not an established diagnosis and that he could not tell whether her account was a real or false memory.

The statements, the photographs and the deceased's words to police at the scene proved that she inflicted the fatal wounds, and it was not disputed that they were sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death. On intent, applying Tan Chor Jin v Public Prosecutor [2008] 4 SLR(R) 306, the judge accepted that she was intoxicated after about ten cans of beer, though the expert estimate of her blood alcohol was speculative. But video showed her walking steadily, filming and grabbing the deceased's shirt, and she argued coherently, noticed and chased Mr Tan when he photographed her, and deliberately chose the sharp knife. Both psychiatrists' evidence was consistent with her having formed the intent; her later memory gaps did not show she lacked capacity at the time.

On sudden fight, the judge accepted that she had not premeditated killing him, but found no fight in the heat of passion. Her statements consistently said the deceased did not stab her; the photographs showed only him injured; fibre analysis of her shirt suggested it was pulled up before she was stabbed; and the deceased told police he did not stab her. The DNA and blood patterns fitted his efforts to restrain her. Armed against two unarmed men, she also took undue advantage.

The High Court convicted the accused of murder under s 300(c) of the Penal Code. It held that the elements of the offence were proved beyond reasonable doubt and that neither intoxication nor sudden fight was established on the balance of probabilities. The court would hear the parties on sentencing.