Father’s death by chokehold: Prosecution to appeal against rare move by judge to convict son on reduced charges
Daniel Wong Wun Meng, a physical education and math teacher with Bukit Batok Secondary School, was convicted on two charges of counterfeiting and using the home-printed S$100 counterfeit notes. He had used the notes to engage the services of a prostitute. Photo: REUTERS
SINGAPORE — Prosecutors will be appealing against a decision by a judge to convict a man on reduced charges.
It was an unusual move in June when District Judge Eddy Tham convicted businessman Mark Tan Peng Liat of a lesser charge of committing a rash act that led to his father’s death — the second time that Tan’s charge was reduced.
The 31-year-old was originally charged with murder in 2015, which was then reduced to culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
In court on Thursday (Aug 24), after Tan was sentenced to a year in jail for committing a rash act, the prosecution could finally make the appeal against the amended charge, as well as against the sentence.
Tan, who was also slapped with a S$5,000 fine after he admitted to possessing 13 air pistols, will be appealing against his sentence and conviction as well. The air pistols were found after the police responded to a call following a fight between Tan and his father.
On Feb 10, 2015, the father-son pair were caught in a scuffle in their West Coast Rise semi-detached house. Tan Kok Keng, 67, had accused his son of stealing his money and tried to punch him, the court heard during a trial last year.
To get his father to stop attacking him, Tan tried to restrain the older man by using a headlock. Later, when his father continued to charge at him, Tan found himself wrapping his right arm around his father’s neck and using his left hand to press down on the base of his father’s neck.
When his father stopped struggling, Tan released his grip and left the room. The older Tan was found lying on the floor by a relative, who was alerted to the fight by the family’s domestic helper. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.
An autopsy report showed that his death was caused by “manual compression of neck”, with “hypertensive heart disease” being a contributory cause.
When Tan was convicted this June on the reduced charge of committing a rash act, District Judge Tham said that he had “no doubt” Tan’s intention was “clearly one of restraint”. He noted that Tan’s evidence “has been consistent and unchallenged”, that he was trying to restrain his father from further assault.
On Thursday, when sentencing Tan, he reiterated this point, stating that Tan’s father had first used violence on his son, and that the restraint “was clearly defensive in nature and not a vicious or brutal attack”.
The district judge added: “I felt that his culpability is mitigated by the fact that he did not have the luxury of time and space to contemplate the seriousness of his action.”
He also noted that Tan was in “a volatile situation of trying to fend off an enraged father, who was much older than him in age, but who was said to be very fit and a holder of a black belt in taekwondo”.
For committing the rash act, Tan could have been jailed up to five years and fined.
His one-year jail sentence is expected to be backdated to February 2015, when he was remanded for eight months.
