South-East Asia (Page 1,970)

As LawSoc president, Mr Tan had many ideas and a full agenda, such as looking at ways to improve retention in law firms and speaking up for the profession when it faced criticism, said Mr Shanmugam.

“Many of us know Adrian as a gifted storyteller. In the past year, as he fought cancer, I believe his life also told us a story – a story of courage, a story of devotion, and a story of service,” Mr Shanmugam added.

The minister said he had called Mr Tan two weeks before he died, having heard about his prognosis.

“I could hardly hear him. He couldn’t speak, but what he told me left me scratching my head because he sounded as if he was going to come back to the office the next week,” Mr Shanmugam added.

“We could not be prouder, or more privileged, than to have had Adrian lead the profession … Singapore is poorer for the loss.”

HIS WIT AND HUMOUR DID NOT DIMINISH

Other speakers also shared of their close friendships with Mr Tan, often speaking directly to his wife Angelina.

They comprised Justice Nair; Far East Hospitality’s chief executive officer Arthur Kiong; Mr Wendell Wong, director of dispute resolution at law firm Drew & Napier where Mr Tan worked for two decades; and Mr Thio Shen Yi, founding partner of TSMP Law Corporation and a former LawSoc president himself.

Harking back to their law school days, Justice Nair – who was also Mr Tan’s former colleague at Drew & Napier – elicited laughter from the audience as he recounted stories of a ritual they had to undergo as NUS freshmen, and how they often skipped classes to go bowling.

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He said that the law mandates occupiers to take steps to ensure that those using the property – including subtenants, employees of businesses, and visitors such as customers – do not interfere with the “peaceful enjoyment” of the subsidiary proprietor of another unit or other people using the common property.

“The law also says a subsidiary proprietor and occupier shall not use their premises for any illegal or vice activities which may be injurious to the reputation of the subdivided building,” he added.

NEED FOR SUFFICIENT PROOF

There must also be sufficient proof before a court order can be made, said Mr Lam, pointing to the material that was supplied to the court in the five cases.

“The court requires sufficient evidence on what we call ‘balance of probability’. So the best evidence will be photographs, videos and tape recordings – that’s the bare minimum they need to provide to the court,” he said.

He added that he does not see a long drawn-out process for the disputes as public entertainment operations in Orchard Towers cease.

“If you don’t have a licence to operate and you continue to operate, it will ultimately lead to regulatory actions being taken,” he said.

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SINGAPORE: A fire in an Ang Mo Kio flat that took the life of a 49-year-old woman originated from lithium-ion cells in battery packs that were left to charge on top of an illegally modified personal mobility device (PMD), a coroner’s court has found.

The PMD had been purchased on Carousell by the woman’s son the night before the fire that consumed the cluttered contents of the flat.

In a written set of findings made available on Monday (Jul 31), State Coroner Adam Nakhoda ruled the death of Madam Tay Choon Hwee a misadventure.

She had died of smoke inhalation, after being taken to hospital in an unresponsive state on the morning of Mar 5, 2021.

He said this case was “a timely reminder of the inherent dangers posed by modified PMDs” and advised users not to buy such devices or modify stock PMDs.

Users should also only charge their devices with the chargers that come with them, he said.

WHAT HAPPENED

The court heard that Mdm Tay lived in a flat in Ang Mo Kio with her son, named in the findings only as “Mr Ching”.

In early March 2021, Mr Ching saw a PMD listed for sale on Carousell for S$1,500 by a Mr Muhammad Shahrul Abdul Razak.

Mr Shahrul testified that he had obtained the PMD by trading a previous device for it on Carousell. He said his wife told him to buy a smaller one that was “not dangerous”, so he listed it for sale.

Mr Shahrul claimed that when he negotiated with Mr Ching over the sale, he had told Mr Ching that the device was not compliant with Land Transport Authority regulations.

They met on the night of Mar 4, 2021, for the transaction. Mr Shahrul gave Mr Ching two 36-volt lithium-ion battery packs but no battery charger. Mr Ching tested the PMD before riding it home.

The PMD was too large to fit into the lift at his Housing Board block initially, and Mr Ching was seen on police camera footage adjusting it.

At about 2am on Mar 5, 2021, he used his own charger to charge the battery packs and monitored it for two hours.

When there were no issues, he joined his mother in their bedroom to sleep at about 4am and left the battery packs charging.

His mother woke him up at about 5am to 6am saying she heard loud noises that sounded like explosions.

They opened the bedroom door and saw a fire around the PMD, with the lithium-ion battery cells “popping”, the court heard.

Mr Ching went to the kitchen toilet to get water to extinguish the fire with, but he soon saw thick black smoke entering the kitchen area.

He closed the toilet door, opened the window for fresh air and shouted for help.

A member of the public had called the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) for help at about 6.10am, and firefighters arrived to see black smoke coming from the unit.

They put out the fire, noting that the living room was full of hoarded items, and found Mr Ching conscious in the toilet.

They found Mdm Tay lying passed out on the floor of the bedroom, which was “heavily smoke logged”, with some items on top of her, the coroner said.

SCDF’S REPORT

SCDF’s fire investigation report concluded that the fire damage was consistent with a fire that originated from the battery packs that had been left to charge on the seat of the PMD.

SCDF said an electrical anomaly had likely occurred within the battery packs while they were being charged, leading to thermal runaway. 

This is an instability that occurs when heat generation exceeds heat loss within a material, and this leads to a self-sustained smouldering or burning.

“The heat from the thermal runaway most likely caused the lithium-ion battery cells to ignite and some may have been dispersed in all directions, including onto the combustible items that were stored and cluttered in the unit’s living room. This would have contributed to the fire spreading in the living room,” read SCDF’s report.

SCDF added that Mr Ching’s battery charger, from his previous PMD, could possibly have been incompatible with the newly bought PMD and its battery packs, resulting in a catastrophic failure of the lithium-ion battery cells.

The coroner said the PMD had been modified such that it was no longer certified for use in Singapore.

He said there was no foul play involved in Mdm Tay’s death.

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SINGAPORE: A man who attacked passers-by and was shot by the police after charging at them had his jail term cut from 33 months to 27 months on Monday (Jul 31), with the Chief Justice attributing the decision mainly to the man’s multiple mental conditions.

In reducing 50-year-old Soo Cheow Wee’s sentence, Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon also laid out the principles that would help a court sentence an offender with multiple mental conditions, and stressed the importance of psychiatric evidence.

Soo had pleaded guilty in September 2022 to four charges, which include voluntarily causing hurt by using a cutting instrument, criminal intimidation and causing hurt to deter a public servant from his duty. 

He had taken cough syrup and diazepam – a drug for anxiety and alcohol withdrawal – without prescriptions, before loitering along a pavement in Clementi with a knife.

Soo slashed a passer-by and flagged a taxi, asking to be taken to Clementi Police Division. He tried to alight while the cab was moving and charged at the taxi driver, who alerted the police.

When the police arrived, Soo suddenly charged at one of the officers, prompting the latter to fire a round from his service revolver.

Soo fell down and was taken to hospital with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound.

It is accepted by both sides that Soo was experiencing an episode of psychosis when he committed the offences.

Even at the lower court, the judge had said he was “troubled” by Soo’s situation which he said was “a little bit” unique, as Soo had a mental condition that was triggered by what he consumed.

Defence lawyer Chooi Jing Yen said his client had been trying to avoid drugs and had wanted to be taken to the police station.

After Soo received the sentence of 33 months’ jail, he turned to the High Court to appeal for a lower sentence of not more than 23 months. 

The prosecution was also dissatisfied with the jail term, appealing instead for it to be replaced by at least five years’ corrective training or a jail term of between 57 and 63 months.

Corrective training is a prison regime for repeat offenders without the usual one-third remission for good behaviour.

The Chief Justice, who heard the appeal, dismissed the prosecution’s application and reduced Soo’s jail term by six months, mainly because the district judge had not placed any weight on Soo’s mental conditions in calibrating his sentence.

Soo was represented by lawyers Chooi Jing Yen and Ng Yuan Siang from Eugene Thuraisingam’s law firm in his appeal.

HIS MENTAL CONDITIONS

Chief Justice Menon said Soo suffers from at least three mental conditions: Schizophrenia, polysubstance dependence and psychosis that is believed to be triggered by the substance abuse and which caused auditory hallucinations and persecutory delusions.

While the prosecution had argued that Soo had voluntarily ingested the drugs knowing that it would trigger his psychosis, the Chief Justice said there was no information in either the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) reports nor Corrective Training report that shed light on whether Soo knew that substance abuse would trigger his psychosis.

Because there was no evidence to show that Soo chose to ingest substances knowing they would result in violent psychotic behaviour, the judge took Soo’s mental condition as a mitigating factor instead of an aggravating one.

“To put it simply, I found it unrealistic, on the evidence before me, to approach this case disregarding the appellant’s medical conditions and sentencing him as though he was an ordinary mentally fit person, which is how the prosecution and the district judge appear to have approached sentencing in this case,” said the Chief Justice.

He pointed out that the psychiatric evidence available to him was inadequate, resulting in certain issues not being more thoroughly addressed.

The gaps in information arose because the IMH reports were prepared “for some other purpose, and not to aid the sentencing court”. Instead, they pertain to Soo’s fitness to stand trial.

“I was also troubled by the fact that the (corrective training) report appeared to suggest that the appellant experienced psychotic episodes in prison, where the appellant could not possibly have had access to intoxicating substances,” said the judge. “However, this too was not addressed in the psychiatric evidence.”

PRINCIPLES WHEN SENTENCING OFFENDER WITH MULTIPLE MENTAL CONDITIONS

In the judgment, the Chief Justice set out for the first time principles to guide a court that is sentencing an offender with multiple mental conditions.

He said the sentencing of a mentally disordered offender often requires the court to “contend with sentencing objectives that may pull in opposite directions, with some emphasising the need to protect society and others, the importance of rehabilitating the offender where feasible”.

The facts a court should consider include: The existence, nature and severity of each mental condition, the synergistic manner in which different conditions may “come together and operate on the accused person’s mind”, whether a causal link can be established between the conditions and the offence, whether the offender knew about his mental conditions and their effects, and whether the overall circumstances diminish the offender’s culpability.

The Chief Justice also listed some questions that should be addressed in a psychiatric report on an offender’s mental condition.

These include whether an offender could have prevented the onset of the symptoms leading to the commission of an offence, whether he could have exercised control over his actions at the time of the offence and whether the mental condition could be treated or controlled.

The Chief Justice said that if an offender embarks on a course of actions that makes him more susceptible to the symptoms of his mental conditions surfacing despite knowing about his conditions and their effects, his “self-induced condition” will not be a mitigating factor.

However, if he is unaware or lacks sufficient understanding of the effect that intoxication or substance abuse might have in precipitating symptoms of his conditions, then his consumption of alcohol or other substances may not be treated as an aggravating factor.

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SINGAPORE: An ambulance simulator, a recreation of the environment of a hospital’s emergency department, and rooms using mixed reality technology to simulate actual incidents: These were all part of a new facility unveiled by the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) at its annual workplan seminar on Monday (Jul 31).

Situated within the Singapore Civil Defence Academy, the National Emergency Medical Service Training Centre (NETC) aims to replicate the operational environment of an ambulance call, said SCDF and the Home Team Science and Technology Agency (HTX) in a media factsheet.

The facility was developed by the SCDF with support from HTX.

Along with the NETC, the SCDF also unveiled a new fire research centre and a mixed-use training premises. These marked the completion of the second phase of the Civil Defence Academy’s field training area’s redevelopment.

The project comprises three main phases. In the first, SCDF introduced at last year’s workplace seminar a new training facility with five laboratories to enhance emergency responders’ physical and mental performance.

Phase three will involve the remodelling of its existing furnace building, Civil Defence Academy director and Assistant Commissioner Alan Chow told reporters during a media visit on Friday.

“Phase two looks at elevating … Emergency Medical Services training, fire and rescue skillsets training and developing new capabilities in terms of fire science and research,” he said.

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Apart from the flag, the national pledge, the national flower Vanda Miss Joaquim, the lion head symbol and the public seal – which is affixed to important documents of state – will also now be recognised as national symbols.

In addition, three presidential symbols – the presidential standard, presidential crest and presidential seal – will be given statutory recognition and protection.

Among the four newly recognised national symbols, the national pledge and public seal will come under statutory safeguards. No new regulations are intended for the national flower or lion head symbol.

Under the new rules, a person must not make a musical record that includes a rearrangement of the national anthem that contravenes the regulations. Additionally, using the national anthem commercially will require permission from the Minister.

Likewise, the national pledge should not be used for commercial purposes unless permission is given by the Minister. When the national pledge is taken, it must always be recited in full.

As for the use of the state crest, an individual must not knowingly make or deal in a copy of the crest or cause a copy of the state crest to be made or dealt in.

This does not apply to anything done by a government department, with the approval of the Minister, for the purposes of reporting news, or anything done incidentally to an act that is otherwise lawful and without causing disrespect to the state crest. A distorted reproduction of the state crest must also not be knowingly made, used or displayed.

The public seal, which is also recognised as a national symbol, may only be affixed by or with the authority of the President or as required or permitted by law.

In addition, the use of presidential symbols will now also be regulated. The presidential standard – a red flag with a white crescent moon and five stars emblazoned in the centre – may only be flown, displayed or otherwise used by or with the authority of the President.

The seal of the President may only be affixed by or with the authority of the President.  

An individual not knowingly make or deal in a copy of the presidential coat of arms or cause a copy of the coat of arms to be made or dealt in. They must also not knowingly make, use or display a distorted reproduction of the coat of arms.

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