APRIL 6 — In the Singapore case of William Tan Cheng Eng v Public Prosecutor [1970] 2 MLJ 244, the accused was charged with the offence of murder in that he, “on or about the 8th day of December 1968, at about 4.45pm at Bedok Road near Jalan Bilal, Singapore, committed murder by causing the death of one Ahmad bin Yassin.”
The offence of murder is defined in Section 300 read with Section 299 of the Penal Code of Singapore and these two provisions read as follows:
“299. Whoever causes death by doing an act with the intention of causing death, or with the intention of causing such bodily injury as is likely to cause death, or with the knowledge that he is likely by such act to cause death, commits the offence of culpable homicide.”
“300. Except in the cases hereinafter excepted culpable homicide is murder–
Firstly — if the act by which the death is caused is done with the intention of causing death; or
Secondly — if it is done with the intention of causing such bodily injury as the offender knows to be likely to cause the death of the person to whom the harm is caused; or
Thirdly — if it is done with the intention of causing bodily injury to any person, and the bodily injury intended to be inflicted is sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death; or
Fourthly — if the person committing the act knows that it is so imminently dangerous that it must in all probability cause death, or such bodily injury as is likely to cause death, and commits such act without any excuse for incurring the risk of causing death, or such injury as aforesaid.”
The above provisions are similar — what lawyers call in pari materia — to Sections 300 and 299 of the Malaysian Penal Code.
The case for the prosecution was that the accused committed murder under the fourth clause of the definition in Section 300 in that while driving his 1954 model Ford Prefect car along Bedok Road in the direction of the sea he caused the death of an approaching motor cyclist, Ahmad bin Yassin, in such circumstances that he knew that his manner of driving was so imminently dangerous that it must in all probability cause death, or such bodily injury as was likely to cause death.
The author argues that reckless driving can meet the legal threshold for murder under Section 300(d) of the Penal Code when the offender knowingly engages in imminently dangerous conduct likely to cause death, supporting the decision to pursue murder charges in fatal road incidents. — Bernama pic
The facts relied on by the prosecution were as follows.
The accused while driving his car along Changi Road saw in front of his car and seated in the front passenger’s seat of a Morris car a girl, Miss Poh, working in the same office with whom he had been going steady from January 1966 till May 1968. Miss Poh had broken off this steady relationship in May because of his possessive nature. She was seated beside a friend, Mr Say, in his Morris car and they were going back to the city after having been to Changi Beach earlier that Sunday afternoon.
The accused had two male friends with him in his car and on seeing Miss Poh, he gave chase and overtook the Morris car. After overtaking, he slowed down and stopped his car by the grass verge so abruptly that Mr Say had to apply his brakes to avoid colliding with the Ford car.
Miss Poh then told Mr Say not to stop and Mr Say overtook the Ford car and proceeded driving fast along Changi Road with the Ford car following. Both cars turned left into Bedok Road which is a straight and longish stretch of road.
The accused overtook the Morris car and again slowed down to a speed of about 10mph whereupon Mr Say in his Morris car overtook the accused’s Ford car and drove on at a speed of about 50mph. An independent prosecution eyewitness said that there was no other traffic along Bedok Road.
The accused subsequently, and still along Bedok Road, caught up with the Morris car and the evidence was that the Ford car first came into contact with the rear of the Morris car and then came into contact with the front off-side mudguard of the Morris car and as a result of the second impact the Ford car became unsteady and zig-zagged diagonally to the right and came into headlong collision with the deceased who was approaching on his motorcycle travelling on its proper side of the road.
The motorcyclist died almost instantaneously.
The prosecution said that on those facts the accused by driving his car in an extremely reckless and dangerous manner with utter disregard for, or total indifference to other users of the road had committed murder within the meaning of the fourth clause of section 300 of the Penal Code.
According to the prosecution, the law was clear. Knowledge on the part of an accused person of the consequences of his act which had resulted in death was an essential ingredient of the offence of murder under the fourth clause of section 300.
In order to succeed, the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused knew, when he drove his car in such a manner as to come into contact first with the rear and then with the front off-side mudguard of the Morris car, that it was so imminently dangerous that it must in all probability cause death or such bodily injury as was likely to cause death.
It is not however sufficient to amount to murder under Section 300 for an act to be so imminently dangerous that it must in all probability cause death. Such an act becomes murder only if the person who commits the act, and death results, knew, when committing the act, that it was so imminently dangerous that it would in all probability cause death, or such bodily injury as was likely to cause death.
The case had been dubbed “murder by car”.
It is no surprise that Attorney General Tan Sri Mohd Dusuki Mokhtar has defended the decision to level a murder charge in the fatal Klang drink-driving crash. Dusuki explained that the case meets the threshold for murder under Section 300(d) of the Penal Code.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
