Case Details
- Citation: [2020] SGHC 41
- Title: Lee Shing Chan v Public Prosecutor and another appeal
- Court: High Court of the Republic of Singapore
- Date of Decision: 28 February 2020
- Coram: Sundaresh Menon CJ; Tay Yong Kwang JA; Aedit Abdullah J
- Case Numbers: Magistrate’s Appeal Nos 9088 and 9089 of 2019
- Judgment Author: Tay Yong Kwang JA (delivering the grounds of decision of the court)
- Appellants: Lee Shing Chan (“Lee”); Tan Ah Lai (“Tan”)
- Respondents: Public Prosecutor; and another appeal (Tan Ah Lai’s appeal)
- Representation (Appellants): The appellants in MA 9088/2019 and MA 9089/2019 in person
- Representation (Respondent): Wong Woon Kwong, Jason Chua, Norine Tan and Daphne Lim (Attorney-General’s Chambers) for the respondent in both appeals
- Young Amicus Curiae: Leong Yi-Ming (Allen & Gledhill LLP)
- Legal Area: Criminal Law — Statutory Offences
- Statutory Provisions Referenced: s 6 POHA (Cap 256A, 2015 Rev Ed); s 7 POHA read with s 34 of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed); Protection from Harassment Act (POHA); Crimes Act 1958 (metadata note); A of the Crimes Act 1958 (metadata note); and a note contrasting “Protection from Harassment Act 1997” (metadata note)
- Related/Previously Reported Cases Cited: [2019] SGCA 81; [2019] SGMC 78; [2020] SGHC 41
- Procedural History (Key Points): Joint trial in the State Courts; Chow Yong Heng (“Chow”) pleaded guilty earlier and served a three-month imprisonment sentence for the s 7 POHA charge; Lee pleaded guilty to the s 6 charge and claimed trial for s 7; Tan claimed trial for both s 6 and s 7 charges
- Magistrate’s Orders (Key Points): Convictions on all charges; Lee: 1 week (s 6) and 4 months (s 7); Tan: 9 days (s 6) and 4 months (s 7); sentences ordered to run consecutively
- High Court’s Decision (Key Points): Appeals against conviction dismissed; appeals against sentence allowed; s 7 sentences reduced from 4 months to 2 weeks; s 6 and s 7 sentences ordered to run concurrently; aggregate sentence of 2 weeks for each appellant
- Judgment Length: 14 pages, 7,122 words (as provided in metadata)
Summary
Lee Shing Chan v Public Prosecutor and another appeal [2020] SGHC 41 concerned two hawkers who were convicted under the Protection from Harassment Act (POHA) for (i) using abusive words towards a public servant executing his duty, and (ii) unlawful stalking with the common intention to cause alarm. The High Court dismissed the appellants’ appeals against conviction but allowed their appeals against sentence, substantially reducing the imprisonment term for unlawful stalking.
The factual core was the appellants’ decision to follow two National Environment Agency (NEA) officers in a lorry for about three hours after enforcement action against their illegal hawking. The officers testified that they were alarmed and worried about their safety, including fear of being followed to their homes. The Magistrate found that the statutory elements of unlawful stalking were satisfied, including the existence of a “course of conduct” and the requisite intention to cause alarm. On appeal, the High Court upheld those findings, but recalibrated the sentencing approach, emphasising proportionality and the proper application of sentencing frameworks to the specific circumstances.
What Were the Facts of This Case?
Lee Shing Chan and Tan Ah Lai were unlicensed fruit hawkers. On 6 June 2016, at about 6.45pm, they were spotted selling fruits illegally near Yew Tee MRT station. Two NEA officers—Mr Mohamed Shammir (Shammir) and Mr Siow Chee Tseng (Siow)—took enforcement action. Lee and Chow Yong Heng (“Chow”) were arranging boxes of fruits near Lee’s silver Nissan lorry (the “Lorry”). The fruits and two wooden planks forming a makeshift display table were seized. Tan was issued a summons for being an unlicensed hawker.
After the summons and seizure, the NEA team left in a van (the “NEA Van”) to continue its work. The NEA team comprised Shammir, Siow, Nagalingam (the driver), and Yasothaaran (a CISCO auxiliary police officer, “APO”). The appellants and Chow then entered the Lorry and followed the NEA Van. The following lasted for approximately three hours and involved multiple stops and “tests” by the officers to see whether the Lorry was deliberately tracking them.
Over the course of the three-hour period, the NEA officers observed the Lorry following them from one location to another. The sequence included: (1) from Yew Tee MRT to Lakeside MRT, where Shammir instructed the driver to take a dead-end slip road to test whether the Lorry would follow; it did; (2) from Lakeside MRT to a carpark near Pioneer MRT, where the officers relocated again and the Lorry followed; (3) to a petrol station for a toilet break, where the Lorry continued to follow; and (4) to the NEA North East Regional Office, where the NEA Van went to dispose of seized items.
The incident culminated at an open carpark near Seah Im food centre (the “Seah Im carpark”). The NEA Van went there to test again whether the Lorry was following. Siow alighted to take photographs of the Lorry. Lee, Tan, and Chow alighted from the Lorry. Lee demanded to see Siow’s warrant card. When Siow refused to produce it, Lee and Tan hurled vulgarities in the Hokkien dialect at Siow. Shammir and Yasothaaran alighted from the NEA Van and attempted to re-enter it, but Lee stood in front of the doors and held onto them. Chow did not participate in this confrontation and therefore did not face the abusive-words charge under s 6 POHA.
What Were the Key Legal Issues?
The appeals raised two principal issues. First, the court had to determine whether the elements of unlawful stalking under s 7 POHA were proved beyond a reasonable doubt, with particular focus on whether the appellants’ conduct amounted to a “course of conduct”. The appellants argued that the conduct occurred on only one occasion and was not sufficiently protracted or structured to qualify as a “course of conduct” within the statutory meaning.
Second, the court had to consider whether the appellants possessed the requisite intention to cause alarm. While the prosecution relied on the officers’ testimony that they were alarmed and worried for their safety, the appellants contended that their motive was not sinister and that they did not conceal themselves. They also argued that the presence of an APO in the NEA Van meant their conduct was unlikely to cause alarm or distress, and that their actions were reasonable because they wanted to retrieve their goods.
Although the High Court ultimately dismissed the appeals against conviction, the sentencing issue remained significant. The court had to decide whether the Magistrate’s sentencing approach—particularly the application of a sentencing framework and the emphasis on parity—resulted in an excessive sentence for the unlawful stalking charges in the particular circumstances of the case.
How Did the Court Analyse the Issues?
The High Court’s analysis began with the statutory structure of POHA offences. The appellants were charged under s 6 POHA for using abusive words towards a public servant in relation to the execution of his duty. They were also charged under s 7 POHA for unlawful stalking, read with s 34 of the Penal Code to reflect common intention. The court treated the s 6 and s 7 charges as distinct offences with different elements, even though the factual narrative overlapped. This distinction mattered because the abusive-words incident at the Seah Im carpark formed the basis of the s 6 charges, while the unlawful stalking charge focused on the appellants’ conduct of following the NEA officers over time.
On the “course of conduct” issue, the court accepted that the appellants’ following of the NEA Van was not a single, momentary act. The evidence showed a sustained pattern: the Lorry followed the NEA Van across multiple locations for about three hours, and the officers conducted deliberate tests (such as taking a dead-end slip road and relocating carparks) to determine whether the Lorry was intentionally tracking them. The fact that the Lorry followed despite these tests supported the inference that the conduct was systematic and continuous rather than incidental.
The court also considered the appellants’ explanations for their conduct. The appellants admitted that they decided to follow the NEA officers. Their defence was that they were trying to retrieve seized goods and that there was nothing sinister in their motive. They also suggested that they followed to ask the officers to call the police. The Magistrate had rejected these explanations as inconsistent and illogical, and the High Court saw no basis to disturb those findings. In particular, the court noted that the appellants’ conduct of ensuring the NEA officers could see and know they were being followed undermined the claim that the conduct was merely benign or aimed at lawful retrieval.
On the intention to cause alarm, the court placed weight on both the objective and subjective aspects of the offence. The officers testified that they were alarmed and worried about their safety, including fear of being followed to their homes. The court treated this evidence as relevant to whether alarm was caused and whether the appellants’ conduct was of a kind that would be expected to cause alarm. The appellants argued that the presence of an APO meant they were unlikely to cause distress. The court did not accept this as decisive. The Magistrate had characterised the “APO presence” argument as an afterthought because it was not put to witnesses at trial. More fundamentally, the appellants’ boldness in continuing to follow and track the NEA Van despite the presence of an APO could still reasonably be perceived as threatening or intimidating.
Having upheld conviction, the High Court turned to sentencing. The Magistrate had applied a sentencing framework derived from Lim Teck Kim v Public Prosecutor [2019] 5 SLR 279, and had considered parity with Chow’s earlier sentence. Chow had pleaded guilty and received three months’ imprisonment for the s 7 POHA charge. The Magistrate reasoned that because Chow played a lesser role and pleaded guilty, a guilty plea discount justified a higher sentence for Lee and Tan. The Magistrate also ordered consecutive sentences for s 6 and s 7, resulting in an aggregate term of four months for each appellant.
On appeal, the High Court allowed the appeals against sentence. While the judgment extract provided does not set out the full sentencing reasoning, the outcome indicates that the High Court considered the Magistrate’s calibration to be too severe for the unlawful stalking component. The court set aside the four-month imprisonment terms for the s 7 charges and substituted them with two weeks’ imprisonment. It further ordered that the s 6 and s 7 sentences run concurrently rather than consecutively. The practical effect was that each appellant’s aggregate sentence became two weeks’ imprisonment.
This sentencing correction reflects a key principle in criminal sentencing: proportionality and the avoidance of over-penalisation where the overall criminality is already captured by related offences. The High Court’s approach suggests that, although the unlawful stalking offence was made out, the specific circumstances—including the relationship between the stalking conduct and the abusive-words incident, and the overall factual matrix—warranted a materially lower custodial term than that imposed by the Magistrate.
What Was the Outcome?
The High Court dismissed the appellants’ appeals against conviction. It upheld the Magistrate’s findings that the elements of unlawful stalking under s 7 POHA were proved beyond a reasonable doubt, including the existence of a “course of conduct” and the intention to cause alarm.
However, the High Court allowed the appeals against sentence. It set aside the four-month imprisonment sentences imposed for the s 7 POHA charges and replaced them with two weeks’ imprisonment. It also ordered that the sentences for the s 6 and s 7 charges run concurrently, resulting in an aggregate sentence of two weeks’ imprisonment for each appellant.
Why Does This Case Matter?
Lee Shing Chan v Public Prosecutor [2020] SGHC 41 is significant for practitioners because it clarifies how courts may interpret “course of conduct” in unlawful stalking prosecutions under POHA. The case demonstrates that a pattern of following over multiple locations and over a sustained period—especially where officers conduct tests to confirm whether they are being tracked—can satisfy the statutory threshold even where the conduct is framed by the accused as a single episode.
At the same time, the decision is equally important on sentencing. The High Court’s substantial reduction of the s 7 custodial term underscores that sentencing must remain proportionate to the offender’s overall criminality and the specific factual context. Even where conviction is upheld, the sentencing outcome may differ materially if the trial court’s sentencing calibration overstates the appropriate custodial period.
For lawyers advising clients charged under POHA, the case offers practical guidance on evidential and argumentative strategies. On conviction, admissions that the accused followed the officers can be highly damaging, and explanations that do not align with the conduct observed by witnesses may be rejected. On sentence, however, the case illustrates that parity with co-accused and the application of sentencing frameworks must be handled carefully, particularly where multiple charges arise from overlapping conduct and where the overall sentencing structure risks double counting.
Legislation Referenced
- Protection from Harassment Act (Cap 256A, 2015 Rev Ed) — s 6
- Protection from Harassment Act (Cap 256A, 2015 Rev Ed) — s 7
- Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed) — s 34 (common intention)
- Crimes Act 1958 (metadata note)
- A of the Crimes Act 1958 (metadata note)
- Protection from Harassment Act 1997 (metadata note; contrasted in metadata)
Cases Cited
- Lim Teck Kim v Public Prosecutor [2019] 5 SLR 279
- [2019] SGCA 81
- [2019] SGMC 78
- [2020] SGHC 41 (this case)
Source Documents
This article analyses [2020] SGHC 41 for legal research and educational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice. Readers should consult the full judgment for the Court's complete reasoning.