1 These are brief grounds, capturing oral remarks made in dismissing the Appellant’s appeal against conviction, but allowing his appeal against sentence.

2 In the present case, the Appellant appealed against his conviction after trial on a charge of voluntarily causing grievous hurt in furtherance of a common intention with another person, Arumugan Manikandan (“the co-accused”), to the victim, Muthu Palani Sugumaran (“the victim”), under s 325 read with s 34 of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed) (“Penal Code”). The Appellant also appealed against the sentence of ten months’ imprisonment that was imposed on him.

3  The Appellant argued that the decision below should be reversed as the offence was not made out. The Appellant was not proven to have had the common intention to cause the specific injury which was the subject of the charge against him (ie, an undisplaced fracture of his right middle finger). ¹ Despite the best arguments made by counsel, I was of the view that the proper interpretation was that there only need be common intention to cause the criminal act (ie, some form of grievous hurt), and not the specific injury inflicted. However, I concluded that the sentence imposed was manifestly excessive as inappropriate weight was placed on certain factors, and accordingly reduced the sentence imposed to seven months’ imprisonment.

4 The Appellant and the co-accused were involved in an altercation with the victim, after the victim had sounded his lorry’s horn when the Appellant and co-accused had dashed across a road. Subsequently, the Appellant and co-accused went after the lorry, which was being driven slowly. The co-accused caused damage to the lorry by kicking its right side mirror. ² The victim alighted and confronted the Appellant and co-accused. Thereafter, a fight ensued, with the Appellant and co-accused hitting the victim on his face and body. After he had fallen to the ground, they stepped on and kicked his chest, and also kicked his back. In the midst of this, the victim’s right middle finger was fractured. A passing CISCO officer intervened. The fight lasted for a total of about two minutes. Aside from the fracture, the victim was found to have bruising over his face and shoulder and suffered pain. ³

5 The co-accused pleaded guilty to and was convicted of a charge of voluntarily causing hurt in furtherance of a common intention with the Appellant under s 323 read with s 34 of the Penal Code. A charge of mischief with common intention under s 426 read with s 34 of the Penal Code was taken into consideration for the purposes of sentencing. ⁴ The co-accused was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment. ⁵

6 The Appellant faced a total of two charges. The first, which formed the subject of this appeal, was for voluntarily causing grievous hurt in furtherance of a common intention under s 325 read with s 34 of the Penal Code. The second was for committing mischief in furtherance of a common intention under s 426 read with s 34 of the Penal Code. After trial, he was convicted of the first charge and acquitted of the second charge, and was sentenced to ten months’ imprisonment. He appealed against both his conviction and sentence. The Prosecution did not appeal against his acquittal on the mischief charge.

7 The Appellant argued that the common intention element would only be made out if it was shown that he had the common intention to inflict the very injury which was the subject of the charge. ⁶ The Appellant would have to be shown to know that it was almost certain the primary offender would commit the criminal act in furtherance of the common intention of all the parties. ⁷ The Appellant argued that the Court of Appeal (“CA”) decision in Daniel Vijay s/o Katherasan and others v Public Prosecutor [2010] 4 SLR 1119 (“Daniel Vijay”) was authority for these propositions. He also relied on the decision of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in R v Jogee [2016] 2 WLR 681 (“Jogee”).

8 The Prosecution argued that Daniel Vijay did not support the arguments made by the Appellant: the common intention need only be to cause the injury type contemplated by primary offence (ie, grievous hurt in this case) and not a specific injury. ⁸

14 The next consideration would then be the interplay of aggravating factors on that baseline. The Prosecution here and below seems to have set some store by the existence of an aggravating factor in the attack being a “group attack”, as well as the length of the attack. While the District Judge stated that she was careful to bear in mind that there were only two persons involved, she accepted the labelling of the assault by the Prosecution as a “group assault”. ⁹ On appeal, the Prosecution maintained that characterisation. ¹⁰ An assault by a group as against that by an individual merits a heavier sentence, all other things being equal, as such an assault entails a greater degree of culpability: the victim is outnumbered, and generally overwhelmed. It may also entail greater harm, through the sheer scale of the injuries caused. An assault by a group of persons also potentially endangers public order: mob assaults have a tendency to go out of hand, and lead to other dangers. But there must be consideration of whether the assault is indeed a group assault. An attack by five would be by a group, but will also probably constitute other, more serious, offences. An assault by four would be as well. That by three, as well, though that may be on the boundaries of the meaning of the word ‘group’. An assault by two though is on the very edges of such meaning. It is important then to unbundle the meaning and objective of the term “group assault”, and to ensure that consideration is given to the fact that the situation is perhaps different from an assault by a larger number, as it would be as regards a solo assault. It is in between, and I was of the view that the sentencing should be undertaken with that in mind.

15 I note that similar problems exist in respect of other labels commonly used in submissions, such as “premeditation” and “abuse of position”. Care must be taken not to be carried away with loose labelling.

16 As for the duration of the assault, a two-minute assault is not brief, and I had no doubt that it was a long two minutes for the victim. But this was not the sort of attack that attracts the label of viciousness. There are, unfortunately, many common instances of actual viciousness. The duration and degree of attack was not such as to push the sentence further along the scale to the extent identified by the District Judge. On the other side of the coin, I did take into account that the accused was intoxicated.

17 Taking all of these in mind, I was of the view that a sentence of seven months’ imprisonment was appropriate, and accordingly so ordered.