Authors: Alex Josey
The Judges remarked that the Solicitor-General
had drawn their attention to Section 30 of the Evidence Act, which provides
that:
When more persons than one are being tried
jointly for the same offence, and a confession made by one of such persons
affecting himself and some others of such persons is proved, the Court may take
into consideration such confession as against such other persons as well as
against the person who makes such confession.
The Judges said: “We were aware that this
provision should be used with the greatest caution and that although the Court
may take into consideration the confession of a co-accused, its value is less
than that of the evidence of an accomplice. On the evidence before us we had no
difficulty in coming to the conclusion that Ngo, Leong and Ang Boon Chai were
attacked, brutally assaulted, tied up and strangled to death at Andrew Chou’s
house on 29 December 1971, and that their dead bodies were carried away in the
Volkswagen and dumped at Changi near the Reformative Training Centre.
“We came to the conclusion that the Chou
brothers took part in the brutal assault on the three victims in the course of
which these accused sustained their injuries (damaged hand and bruised back)
that night.”
The Judges said they came to the conclusion
that Peter Lim got the bloodstains on his shirt at Andrew Chou’s house, not
from the car, but when he took part in the brutal attack.
“After considering all the evidence we did
not believe the story of each of the nine accused. We also considered the case
against each accused separately in the light of his defence. Their defence did
not create a reasonable doubt in our minds as to the strength of the case for
the prosecution nor as to the guilt of each of the nine accused. We were
convinced that Augustine Ang was speaking the truth. His story runs true when
considered in the light of the rest of the evidence and the surrounding
circumstances. The first accused (Andrew Chou) was, without doubt, the prime
mover of the conspiracy because without him there would have been no gold to
rob. Augustine Ang was merely Chou’s errand boy and was all the time acting
under Andrew Chou’s orders. David Chou was in charge of operations, while Peter
Lim was the person who recruited the boys. Alex Yau and Stephen Lee were
members of the original team of boys recruited for the job by Peter Lim. When
Fernando Lee and Anchor withdrew it was Peter Lim who recruited the new
boys—Ringo Lee, Richard James, Stephen Francis and Konesekaram.”
There was no doubt that all the nine accused
and Augustine Ang were present at Andrew Chou’s house on the night of 29
December 1971 and that all of them knew that some people were to be killed
there that night. The Chou brothers and Peter Lim together with Augustine Ang
were the principal conspirators in the plot to kill Ngo and his assistants for
their gold. “Alex Yau knew that some persons would be attacked and their dead
bodies had to be carried away and dumped. He was in the plot from the
beginning.” So was Stephen Lee. “When he rushed out of the kitchen that night
with the others he went to help in the killings.” The four new recruits also
knew what was to take place that night. “They all knew that some people were to
be killed and when they all rushed out of the kitchen they joined in the
killing,” and later went to dispose of the bodies. “We had no difficulty in
coming to the conclusion that the common object of the nine accused was to kill
Ngo, Leong and Ang Boon Chai. The evidence was overwhelming and clear that on
the night in question when the nine accused and Augustine Ang assembled at 19
Chepstow Close, they were all members of an unlawful assembly whose common
object was to cause the death of Ngo, Leong and Ang Boon Chai, and that while
they were members of that unlawful assembly some members thereof, if not all,
in the prosecution of the unlawful assembly, committed murder by causing the
death of Ngo, Leong and Ang Boon Chai. We accordingly found all the nine
accused persons guilty on all the three charges, and they were all convicted
thereon.”
THE APPEAL WAS HEARD BEFORE Chief
Justice Wee Chong Jin, Justice Winslow and Justice Kulasekaram, and the
Judgement was handed down on 29 March 1974.
The Court reviewed the evidence.
They found that when discovered, the body of Leong had bruises on the right eyebrow
and the lower lip and rope marks around the neck. The body of Ngo had bruises
over the front side of the face, on both ears and on the left side of the
chest. There were also multiple bruises on the back of the body and rope marks
around the neck. The testicles were swollen. The body of Ang Boon Chai had
bruises on the left side of the face and rope marks around the neck. The three
dead men had, therefore, clearly been brutally assaulted and strangled, and the
cause of death as found by the pathologist was, in each case, by asphyxia from
strangulation. It was the opinion of the pathologist that their deaths occurred
sometime between 8:30
pm
on 29
December and 2:30
am
on 30
December 1971 and that death would have ensued within one to three minutes of the
application of pressure to their necks.
“Our attention was drawn to many passages in
the transcript of Augustine Ang’s evidence where, when cross-examined, he
admitted his earlier testimony was a mistake or changed his story as regards a
particular incident, or where his evidence is contradictory to that of a police
officer. It is submitted that these passages showed that the trial Judges’
assessment was completely unjustified as those passages, though they related to
minor matters, clearly raised doubts as to Augustine Ang’s veracity. This Court
has throughout the years always recognised the advantages which a jury, or a
judge sitting alone, has in seeing and hearing the witnesses, and in the
present case we have not been persuaded that the trial Judges were wrong, or
were not justified, on all the evidence before them during the trial, in their
assessment of Augustine Ang as a truthful witness.
“The next criticism is that those passages
at least gave rise to grave suspicion of Augustine Ang’s story of the central
events on the fateful night and in the light of his being an accomplice, who
was clearly involved from the beginning to the end in the three murders and
also had the strongest possible motive in implicating all the accused, the
trial Judges ought not to have convicted them on the uncorroborated and
unsatisfactory evidence of such an accomplice. The law on the subject of
corroboration has fairly recently been considered by the Judicial Committee of
the Privy Council in the case of Chiu Nang Hong v Public Prosecutor (1965),
which was a case of rape, where there was no corroboration of the evidence of
the complainant. Lord Donovan said: “On appeal the Court of Appeal decided that
it could not interfere with the learned Judge’s judgement, though merely
reading the notes of evidence the members of the Court might feel something
less than satisfaction as to the guilt of the appellant. But the learned Judge
had seen and heard the witnesses: he was aware of the danger of convicting
without some corroborative evidence of the complainant’s story, and he knew
there was no such evidence. Nevertheless, he was convinced of the truth of the
complainant’s story, and in that position was entitled in law to convict the
appellant. Their Lordships would be of the like opinion if it were correct to
say that the learned Judge knew that he was convicting in the absence of
corroborative evidence, and bearing the risk in mind of doing so, yet felt
convinced of the truth of the complainant’s story.
In our opinion the same principles are
applicable where the uncorroborated evidence is that of an accomplice. Applying
those principles, we are of the opinion that the judgement of the trial Judges
clearly indicated that they were aware of the danger of convicting without
corroborative evidence of Augustine Ang’s story, and that they knew that there
was no such evidence but nevertheless were convinced that he was speaking the
truth in the light of the evidence and the surrounding circumstances.
Accordingly, in our judgement, there was no mis-direction, or non-direction, on
the part of the trial Judges in accepting Augustine Ang as a truthful witness
and in acting upon his evidence even though he was an accomplice whose evidence
was uncorroborated. Furthermore, after a consideration of the careful arguments
of all the counsel appearing before us, and after a searching review of the
shorthand transcript of the evidence at the trial, we do not think that the
verdicts of the trial Judges were wrong, nor do we think them in all the circumstances
unsafe or unsatisfactory or unjust.”
As for the contention on behalf of the Chou
brothers that the trial Judges erred in law in refusing their applications to
be tried separately from the other seven co-accused, the Court of Appeal said:
“It is conceded that the law is that this is a matter for the discretion of the
trial Judges, but the criticism is that there is no indication in the
transcript that the trial Judges exercised their discretion at all. In our
opinion this ground of appeal is also without substance. The transcript shows
that the matter was argued fully on behalf of the two brothers, and having
regard to the charges as framed, this Court of Appeal in principle ought to
infer that the trial Court, which in this case consisted of two experienced
trial Judges, had given due consideration to the matter although they did not
think it necessary to give reasons for their decision. This being a matter of
discretion it is not for this Court to interfere with the exercise of the
discretion unless it is satisfied that the trial Judges acted upon wrong
principles, and so far from being satisfied we are of the opinion that they
were correct in refusing the applications for separate trials.”
For the same reasons, the Court of Appeal
also rejected as being without substance the same point raised by counsel on
behalf of Peter Lim, Richard James, Stephen Francis and Konesekaram. The Court
quoted Lord Goddard’s observations at an appeal in 1946, in which the Chief
Justice of Britain had said: “The law is, and always has been, that this is a
matter of discretion for the Judge at the trial ... the discretion, no doubt,
must be exercised judicially, that is, not capriciously. The Judge must
consider the interests of justice as well as the interests of the prisoners. It
is too often nowadays thought or seems to be thought, that the ‘interests of
justice’ means only the ‘interests of the prisoners’. If once it was taken as
settled that every time it appears that one prisoner as part of his defence
means to attack another, a separate trial must be ordered, it is obvious there
is no room for discretion and a rule of law is substituted for it. There is no
case in which this has ever been laid down, and in the opinion of the Court it
would be most unfortunate and contrary to the true interests of justice, if it
were.”
Another common ground of appeal was that the
trial Judges erred in law and in fact in finding that the common object of them
all was to kill the victims. “If,” said the Court of Appeal, “the trial Judges’
assessment of Augustine Ang as a truthful witness is justified on all the
evidence and the circumstances and they were convinced that his story was true
and acted upon it after warning themselves of the danger of convicting on his
uncorroborated evidence, then, in our judgement, there was no such error in law
or in fact on the part of the trial Judges. It mattered not, in our view, that
on Augustine’s evidence there were other common objects shared by them all, or
that some of them shared some other common object, such as robbery or the
disposal of dead bodies or assault which was not shared by the others, so long
as it was proved beyond a reasonable doubt against each of them that he shared
with the rest the common object of killing the persons expected by them to
arrive at Andrew’s house on the night of 29 December 1971.”
It was also contended on behalf of Peter Lim
that the trial Judges should not have admitted in evidence the cautioned
statement made by him to a police officer after his arrest because he made the
statement under duress. The question as to its admissibility had been fully
considered, said the Court of Appeal, during a ‘trial within a trial’, and “we
see no reason to doubt that the trial Judges’ discretion had not been
judicially exercised”.
A somewhat similar ground was raised by Alex
Yau. He submitted that his cautioned statement was inadmissible because he
himself had written it when the law required the statement to be taken down in
writing by the officer to whom the statement is made. “There is no substance to
this point,” declared the Court of Appeal. They said that the law expressly
stated that a statement could be oral or in writing.
The Court of Appeal summed up by saying that
they had ‘scrutinised with care’ the transcript of the evidence of all nine
‘having regard to the arguments urged before us by all the counsel that the
conviction of each of their respective clients was unreasonable, or was not
supported by the evidence’. The Court said: “We have considered these arguments
bearing in mind the observations of the trial Judges after a lengthy trial
during which, as they said, Augustine Ang was subjected to a thorough and
severe cross-examination for seven days out of the nine he spent in the witness
box, and bearing in mind the trial Judges’ assessment of Augustine Ang as a
truthful witness on whose evidence they had no hesitation in acting, well
knowing the danger of acting on the evidence of a self-confessed accomplice to
the crime of murder. We have come to the conclusion that there was sufficient
evidence to warrant the conviction of each of the nine on all three charges of
murder. Accordingly the appeals of all nine are dismissed.”