1 The accused person, Chan Sui Kwan (“the Accused”), claimed trial before me to the following charge:

DAC 914290 of 2024

On 30 June 2024, at 6.54 pm, at the public area of Terminal 3’s Departure Hall, Changi Airport, Singapore, the Accused did voluntarily cause hurt to a public servant, one Special Constable/Sergeant (2) Ewan Lim Ze Kai, a police officer in the discharge of his duty, by biting the said public servant on his forearm, causing him bodily pain, and the Accused had thereby committed an offence punishable under section 332 of the Penal Code 1871 (“the Penal Code”).

(“the s 332 Charge”)

2 After a trial, I found the Accused guilty of the above charge and convicted her. I sentenced the Accused to six months’ imprisonment.

3 Being dissatisfied with the above conviction and sentence, the Accused has appealed against the same.

4 The Accused was initially jointly tried together with her son, one Chan Wing Kwan (“Chan”) before District Judge Teoh Ai Lin (“DJ Teoh”). Chan was tried for a charge of affray under section 267B of the Penal Code (“the s 267B Charge”). The joint trial of the Accused and Chan before DJ Teoh proceeded from 24 April 2025 to 27 August 2025, when DJ Teoh decided to retire from the Singapore Judicial Service.

5 Thereafter, the joint trial was reassigned to me for continued hearing under section 237(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code 2010 (“CPC”). I decided to act on the evidence already recorded by DJ Teoh under section 237(2)(a) of the CPC rather than starting the trial again under section 237(2)(b). I also ascertained from all parties to the proceedings that they did not wish to recall any of the witnesses who had already given evidence before DJ Teoh for the continued hearing before me. ¹

6 The Accused and Chan are mother and son who came to Singapore on 27 June 2024 for a holiday and to visit friends. They are from Hong Kong.

7 On 30 June 2024, one Khoo Davey (“Davey”) ² had just finished lunch with his family at Terminal 3 of Changi Airport. As he was walking with his family towards the car park at basement 1, he saw Chan kicking the Accused when they were coming out from the lift. Being a good Samaritan and seeing that the Accused was an elderly person ³ , Davey shouted at Chan for him to stop kicking the Accused and told Chan he would otherwise call for the police.

8 Chan, instead of realising that it was wrong for him to have kicked his own mother (i.e. the Accused), became angry at Davey and charged at him. To protect himself, Davey grabbed hold of Chan and both of them fell to the floor. The incident was captured by CCTV footages from different cameras at Basement 1 of Terminal 3 at Changi Airport. ⁴ In the footages, Chan can be seen raising his hand in an up and down hitting motion hitting Davey. During the trial, Davey admitted that in the course of defending Chan’s attack, he could have also punched Chan back.

9  After the fight between Chan and Davey was broken up, Investigation Officer Indra Iskandar ⁵ (“IO Indra”) was activated to attend at the scene of the fight. By the time IO Indra arrived at the scene of the fight, Davey had already left the scene to seek medical treatment at a clinic at the airport. IO Indra met Chan and the Accused at the scene. IO Indra requested Chan for his passport in order for him to record down Chan’s details for purpose of investigations. Chan handed over his passport to IO Indra, albeit reluctantly and kept asking IO Indra why he needed his passport. Chan, then followed by the Accused, kept asking IO Indra for the return of Chan’s passport. As a result of Chan’s and the Accused’s repeated demands for Chan’s passport back, IO Indra decided that he could return Chan’s passport back to him as he had already taken down Chan’s particulars. However, he did not manage to record any statement from Chan due to Chan’s and the Accused’s repeated demands for his passport back. Further, as he had classified the case initially as a voluntarily causing hurt case, which is a non-arrestable offence, he decided that he would conclude investigations at that point in time. ⁶

10 However, when he went back to his office and reviewed the further information of the case, he realised that Davey was 69 years-old and hence an elderly person. He decided to investigate the matter further. So, he informed his operations room to locate Chan for further investigations as the case involved an elderly victim.

11 At about 6 pm on the same day, Chan and the Accused were eventually located at the Departure public area at Terminal 3 of Changi Airport. IO Indra then proceeded to the scene. When IO Indra arrived at the scene, he noted that there were other police officers already at the scene, but they were not engaging with Chan and the Accused.

12 IO Indra then approached Chan to explain to him that he needed Chan’s passport again to investigate further into the earlier affray incident as it involved an elderly victim. Chan responded by questioning IO Indra as to why he needed his passport again. The Accused also became agitated when she heard that IO Indra was asking for Chan’s passport again. She started to raise her voice and complained to other members of the public in the vicinity that IO Indra and his colleagues were fake police who were taking Chan’s Hong Kong passport. ⁷

13 What followed was an excruciating standoff between IO Indra and his colleagues on the one hand, and the Accused and Chan on the other, where IO Indra and his colleagues can be seen and heard ⁸ trying to explain patiently to the Accused and Chan why they needed Chan’s passport again, and to persuade Chan to cooperate. At the same time, the Accused can be seen and heard in the same footage berating IO Indra and his colleagues in a loud voice for demanding for Chan’s passport again. This went on for a good 30 minutes, and Chan continued to refuse to handover his passport, no doubt being egged on by the Accused not to do so.

14 Seeing that the Accused was interfering with the police’s request for Chan to hand over his passport, IO Indra decided to arrest the Accused for being a public nuisance and also requested the Accused for her passport. ⁹ When the Accused continued to refuse to handover her passport despite repeated requests from the police and tried to walk away, the police officers decided to restrain her in order to retrieve her passport. The Accused continued to refuse to handover her passport and can be seen to be hanging on to her bag tightly, which was slung across her chest. As a result of her struggle, a few police officers had to restrain her hands and legs in order to remove her bag from her body before they can handcuff her.

15 Ewan Lim Ze Kai ¹⁰ (Sgt Lim) was one of the police officers involved in the above arrest and restraint of the Accused. At the material time, he was serving his national service in the Singapore Police Force as a Special Constable (Sergeant 2). Sgt Lim testified that in the course of trying to remove the bag from the Accused’s chest and as she was holding on tightly to the straps of her bag in order to prevent the police officers from doing so, he realised that the Accused’s head was getting rather close to the floor. Sgt Lim decided to protect the Accused’s head from hitting the floor by wrapping his hand around her head. It was around this time that the Accused bit Sgt Lim on his right inner forearm, about 5-cm from the wrist. ¹¹ Sgt Lim can be heard in the BWC footages exclaiming “she bit me, bro”. ¹² Eventually, the police officers managed to remove the Accused’s bag from her body and arrested her by handcuffing her.

16 After the incident, Sgt Lim took two photographs of the bitemark himself, as shown in P6. ¹³ Sgt Lim also attended at the National University Hospital to have the bitemark treated. In a medical report, Sgt Lim was noted to have a right anterior forearm bruise of about 1-cm. There was no skin tear noted. Sgt Lim declined painkillers and no medical certificate was issued. ¹⁴

17 Another police officer, Special Constable (Sergeant 2) Ho Jie Han John (“Sgt Ho”) ¹⁵ testified that he was also involved in the arrest of the Accused. He was the one who was holding on to the Accused’s legs as she was kicking her legs about when she was resisting arrest. ¹⁶ Sgt Ho further testified that after the Accused was arrested, Sgt Lim came over to show him the bitemark on Sgt Lim’s arm. ¹⁷

18 Special Constable (Sergeant 1) Mohammad Norzaqif Bin Rosman (“Sgt Norzaqif “) ¹⁸ , who was in charge of the Accused’s arrest, also testified that after the Accused’s arrest, Sgt Lim told him that he (Sgt Lim) was bitten and showed him the bitemark. ¹⁹

19 After an ancillary hearing, which was commenced before DJ Teoh but concluded by me after I took over the trial, I held that a statement recorded by IO Indra from the Accused on 1 July 2024 was given voluntarily by the Accused without any threat, inducement or promise from either IO Indra or anyone in authority. I admitted the statement as part of the Prosecution’s evidence. ²⁰

20 In Question-and-Answer no.19, the Accused was asked the question in Q19 and answered in A19 as follows: ²¹

Q19: When you were being hysterical and shouted (sic) about when the police officers were placing you under arrest, an officer was bitten on the wrist by you. Can you tell me why did you bite on his wrist?

A19: Because I wanted to protect myself and to protect my passport documents.

21 At the end of the trial, I was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Chan was guilty of his offence under the s 267B Charge. I convicted him accordingly. He was sentenced to ten days’ imprisonment. As Chan did not appeal against his conviction or sentence, I shall be dealing only with the Accused’s defence to her s 332 Charge in these grounds of decision.

22 The Accused’s defence was essentially that a bare denial. She also asserted that no one actually saw her biting Sgt Lim and there was also no video evidence showing her biting Sgt Lim in real time.

23 The Accused also tried to justify her refusal in handing over her passport when asked by the police to do so by claiming that the police officers’ uniforms were “too big” and their identification passes had no photographs in them and had moisture in them.

24 This was a rather straightforward case. The actions of Chan and the Accused were captured on CCTV footages at the airport and the BWCs of the police officers.

25 After having carefully considered and evaluated the evidence of Sgt Lim, I have had no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that he was a credible witness, and I accepted his evidence in full that the Accused had bitten his inner right forearm when he was discharging his duty as police office, i.e. in assisting in the arrest of the Accused.

26 Sgt Lim did not know the Accused at the material time and therefore would not have any reason to give false evidence against her. I accepted his evidence that he was trying to protect the Accused’s head from hitting the floor during the arrest, as her head was very close to the floor when the Accused bit his inner right forearm. Indeed, when it happened, Sgt Lim can be heard in the BWC footages in P7 and P8 exclaiming that “she bit me bro”. It was a spontaneous exclamation and a natural reaction of being bitten unexpectedly.

27 Sgt Lim also showed the bitemark to Sgt Ho and Sgt Norzaqif soon after the incident. These were pieces of corroborative evidence supporting Sgt Lim’s evidence that he was bitten by the Accused in the course of discharging his duty as a police officer. The bitemark was noted in the photographs P6 and D1. In this regard, the Accused made the preposterous assertion during trial that the arms as shown in P6 and D1 belonged to two different persons. IO Indra had testified that after he had learnt that Sgt Lim was bitten on his arm by the Accused, he had instructed his operations room personnel to take the photograph in D1 of Sgt Lim’s arm showing the bitemark on the same day. ²² Having carefully compared the arms and the bitemarks as shown in P6 and D1 ²³ , I was satisfied that they both showed Sgt Lim’s arm and bitemark. The bitemark was also noted in a medical report in P9 which reported a bruise on Sgt Lim’s right anterior forearm of about one cm (at [7]). Dr Alexander Ng ²⁴ , the doctor who prepared the medical report in P9, also testified that having examined the locations of the bitemarks in the two photographs, they looked like the same injury. ²⁵

28 Having carefully perused the notes of evidence of the Ancillary Hearing (“AH”) recorded by DJ Teoh and having continued with and concluded the AH by hearing the evidence of the rest of the witnesses, I was satisfied that P17 was given voluntarily by the Accused to IO Indra without any threat, inducement or promise from IO Indra or anyone in authority.

29 The Accused’s main allegations against IO Indra on the recording of P17 were as follows:

(i) that he had disallowed her to write what she had wanted to write and said that she would be charged and her release would be affected if she did so; ²⁶

 (ii) that she was placed in a room with high temperature; ²⁷

 (iii) that he could have forged her signature in her statement; ²⁸ and

 (iv) since the statement was not stamped, it was not valid. ²⁹

30 IO Indra denied the above allegations.

31 Man Yuen Ching (“Madam Man”) ³⁰ was the Cantonese interpreter for the Accused for the recording of P17 as the Accused chose to speak in Cantonese for the statement. Madam Man clarified that although it was recorded in P17 the Accused chose to speak in “English” ³¹ and that the statement was read over to the Accused in “English” ³² , she had interpreted IO Indra’s questions from English to Cantonese for the Accused and interpreted the Accused’s answers to the questions in Cantonese to English for IO Indra. At the conclusion of the recording of P17, the statement was also read back to the Accused in Cantonese.

32 Madam Man testified that whenever IO Indra asked the questions, the Accused would think about her answers and did not answer immediately. Sometimes, she would also clarify the questions with IO Indra through Madam Man. Madam Man said that she would interpret whatever the Accused had answered in response to IO Indra’s questions from Cantonese to English. When asked about the Accused’s allegations against IO Indra as summarized in [29] above, Madam Man said she would be able to recall these incidents if they did happen but she did not recall such incidents. In fact, Madam Man recalled that when she asked the Accused if she had anything else to add to her statement, the Accused said something like she did not know the Singapore law well. ³³

33 The Accused, when confronted with her Case for the Defence (“CFD”) ³⁴ in which she did not raise any of the allegations in [29] above in section D of the CFD where she was required to state “any objection to any issue of fact in relation to any matter contained in the Case for the Prosecution” (which included the Accused’s statement in P17), the Accused blamed the Wi-fi in the airport (where they were staying after their release on personal bond), lack of help and even Chan for not raising the allegations in the CFD. ³⁵

34 Having carefully reviewed the evidence adduced during the AH, I was satisfied that both IO Indra and Madam Man were truthful witnesses. On the other hand, I did not find the Accused to be a truthful witness, as she was prone to making outrageous allegations without any basis at all, for example, trying to justify her refusal to handover her passport to the police by claiming that they were not real police officers because their uniforms were ill fitting, their identification passes had no photographs in them and had moisture in them. In fact, if one were to examine the main allegation made by the Accused against IO Indra at the AH carefully, i.e. that she was not allowed to write what she had wanted to write by IO Indra with the threat that she would be charged and that her release would be affected, even if it was true, the threat did not affect the voluntariness of P17, as this merely meant that the Accused did not manage to say all that she had wanted to say in P17, and not that P17 was not made voluntarily. The Accused was still at liberty to say whatever she had wanted to say in her defence at the main trial. Hence, I was satisfied, even at the close of the main trial, that P17 was made voluntarily by the Accused and that my decision to admit P17 as part of the Prosecution’s evidence after the AH was a correct one.

35 In Q&A 19 of P17, the Accused did not dispute that she had bitten an arresting officer during her arrest when asked by IO Indra why she had done so, but merely answered that it was because she “wanted to protect myself and to protect my passport.” Clearly, if the Accused did not bite anyone during the arrest, she would have simply denied doing so.

36 The Accused’s defence to the s 332 Charge was that a bare denial. Having considered her evidence carefully, I was of the view that her evidence did not make any sense and was devoid of any merit. In trying to justify her action in refusing to hand over her passport, she asserted that it was because the police officers’ uniforms were oversized, their police identification passes had moisture in them and did not have any photograph in them. Such evidence did not make any sense. So long as the police officers are in police uniform and carry proper identification, it is for members of the public to cooperate and comply with reasonable requests of police officers to assist in police investigations, and not for them to make outrageous and unfounded claims about whether the officers’ uniforms were fitting or the conditions of their identification pass, as an excuse in not complying with the police officers’ request.

37 In the circumstances, I did not find the Accused to be a credible witness, and I rejected her evidence. I therefore found that the Prosecution had proven the s 332 Charge against the Accused beyond reasonable doubt, and found her guilty and convicted her of the charge.

38 The Accused was a first-time offender.

39 The Prosecution submitted for a sentence of six to eight months’ imprisonment for the s 332 Charge. ³⁶ Relying on the sentencing framework laid down in PP v Yeo Ek Boon Jeffrey [2018] 3 SLR 1080 (“Jeffrey Yeo”) for such offence, the Prosecution submitted that the present case came under Category 1 of the sentencing framework as the physical harm caused to Sgt Lim was slight: a one cm bruise with no skin tear, and no medicate certificate was issued. ³⁷ Category 1 cases, which involve lesser harm and lower culpability, attract punishments of a fine or up to one year’s imprisonment. The working norm being two to nine months’ imprisonment. This is for offenders who plead guilty and not having relevant criminal antecedents. A fine is reserved for “very exceptional cases”, such as that of a very young offender or one suffering from a mental disorder (Jeffrey Yeo at [59] and [67]). ³⁸

40 However, the Prosecution pointed out the Accused’s case did not fall at the bottom of Category 1 as her culpability was “appreciable” for the following reasons: ³⁹

(a) Biting is a “dangerous means” expressly identified in Jeffrey Yeo (at [60(b)]) as relevant to harm and culpability;

(b) The Accused bit Sgt Lim in the course of resisting a lawful arrest and, on her own admission, “to protect [herself] and to protect [her] passport documents”– a deliberate act in defiance of police authority;

(c) The offence was committed in the public area of a busy international airport, in the view and hearing of members of the public, engaging the concern of the erosion of public respect for the authority of the Police (Jeffrey Yeo at [58] and [60(e)]);

(d) The bite was inflicted on the very officer who was, at that moment, protecting her head from injury.

41 In Ho Mei Xia Hannah v PP [2019] 5 SLR 978 (“Hannah Ho”), also a case involving biting a police officer causing a two cm by two cm hematoma, a sentence of 20 weeks’ imprisonment was imposed. The court placed the case in the middle of Category 1 cases, with the relevant sentencing precedents showing imprisonment terms ranging from five to ten months’ imprisonment were imposed (see Hannah Ho at [91]–[93]). ⁴⁰ However, the offender in Hannah Ho had pleaded guilty and had significant mitigating factors – she was 20 years old at the material time and suffered from a persistent depressive disorder. The Accused, on the other hand, was not a young offender and had no mental disorder. She was also convicted after trial and had made unfounded allegations against some of the prosecution witnesses. ⁴¹

42 The Prosecution submitted that the Accused’s following unfounded allegations impugning the integrity of the Prosecution’s evidence and witnesses warranted a modest uplift in the sentence: ⁴²

(a) that IO Indra could “forge [her] signature” on her statement – an allegation which DJ Teoh noted as a new one, requiring her to identify which document was alleged to have been forged;

(b) that Sgt Lim’s injury had been fabricated or staged, asserting that “[i]t could be a setup… [i]t could be fabricated, nobody knows”– a baseless allegation against an officer whom she had never met before that day, and for which there was no foundation whatsoever.

43 The above was an aggravating factor which engaged the specific upward adjustment in sentence contemplated in Jeffrey Yeo (at [61]) to six to eight months’ imprisonment in the present case. ⁴³

44 In mitigation, the Accused remained unremorseful and maintained that she did not commit any offence. Instead, she claimed that she was attacked and pinned down by six armed officers when all she did was protecting her passport. ⁴⁴

45 The Accused’s predicament was entirely of her own making. She was initially not involved in the fight between Chan and Davey. In fact, she was a victim of an assault by her own son, Chan, which prompted Davey to intervene in the first place. However, when the police requested for Chan’s passport for further investigation into Chan’s s 267B Charge, instead of advising Chan to cooperate with the police as any responsible mother would, the Accused started questioning and arguing with the police as to why they were asking for Chan’s passport again. It was painful to watch the police officers patiently trying to explain to the Accused why they needed Chan’s passport again, and the Accused behaving belligerently in questioning the police’s request in a raised voice for a substantial period of time. ⁴⁵ The impasse only ended when the police decided that the Accused was interfering with the police investigation into Chan’s affray offence and also requested for her passport, which she refused and led to her biting the inner right forearm of Sgt Lim in the course of her arrest for her refusal.

46 I agreed with the Prosecution’s submissions that the facts of the present case brought it under Category 1 of the sentencing framework in Jeffrey Yeo, in view of the minor injury suffered by Sgt Lim, namely, a one-cm bruise, with no skin tear, with the caveat that after the legislative amendment to section 332 in 2019 post Jeffrey Yeo, the offence is now punishable with mandatory imprisonment term save except in “exceptional circumstance”. There was certainly no such “exceptional circumstance” in the present case which would render an imprisonment term inappropriate.

47 I further agreed with the Prosecution on the aggravating factors as set out in [40] above. On the factor of biting being a dangerous means of causing hurt, however, it must be viewed in the context of this case where Sgt Lim was wearing a long-sleeved uniform at the material time and the bite was over the sleeve of the uniform. Hence the potential danger here would be attenuated.

48 The offender in Ho Mei Xia Hannah was sentenced to 20 weeks’ imprisonment after pleading guilty to, inter alia, one charge under s 332 of the Penal Code by biting the right shoulder of a police officer during her arrest for behaving disorderly. The injury caused was more serious, a two cm by two cm hematoma. The offender, however, had two further charges under s 332 of the Penal Code taken into consideration for the purpose of sentencing. In other words, she had caused hurt to three different police officers during her arrest.

49 As the Accused was convicted after a full trial, she would not be entitled to any sentencing discount. However, in view of the fact the Accused faced only one charge and the injury caused was less serious than that in Ho Mei Xia Hannah, I sentenced the Accused to six months’ imprisonment. I backdated her sentence to 23 July 2026, when Chan and the Accused were arrested by the police for failing to attend court without any valid reason on 22 July 2026 for closing submissions for the trial. No bail was granted to them after the arrest.

50 Dissatisfied with her conviction and sentence, the Accused has appealed against the same. She is currently serving the above sentence.