Father of 5-year-old boy who died from abuse gets life sentence, mother convicted of murder after appeal

SINGAPORE — The apex court on Tuesday (July 12) sentenced a father to spend the rest of his life in jail, as well as convicted the mother of murder for abusing their five-year-old son to death in 2016.

In a 133-page written decision, five judges in the Court of Appeal accepted the prosecution’s appeals for a longer jail term for the boy's father, Ridzuan Mega Abdul Rahman, and to reverse an earlier murder acquittal for the mother, Azlin Arujunah. Both are 30 years old.

Azlin now faces either life imprisonment or the death penalty for murder under Section 300(c) of the Penal Code. She began sobbing when the court delivered its judgement.

She has yet to be given a new sentence for her murder conviction.

Both parents were originally charged with murder with common intention, along with other charges related to the fatal abuse.

This murder charge was premised on four acts of burning or scalding committed in the couple’s one-room rental flat from Oct 15 to 22 in 2016. The boy died shortly after that.

Following a High Court trial that ended in mid-2020, Azlin and Ridzuan were acquitted of murder and sentenced to 27 years’ jail each on reduced charges of voluntarily causing grievous hurt by a dangerous weapon or means. Life imprisonment is the maximum punishment for this offence.

Azlin was given one more year behind bars in lieu of caning, taking her total jail sentence to 28 years, while Ridzuan was further sentenced to 24 strokes of the cane.

The prosecution then appealed against the sentences imposed on Azlin and Ridzuan and sought life imprisonment in both cases, as well as for Azlin to be convicted of murder by common intention.

ABOUT THE CASE

The couple — then aged 24 — abused the boy over a span of three months in 2016. For a week in October 2016, they then scalded him with hot water on four occasions. The boy died on Oct 23, after the fourth time.

He had suffered second- to third-degree burns over two-thirds of his body, substantial bleeding under his scalp, cuts on his head and face, nasal bone fractures and extensive bruises over his limbs and back. His skin had also turned yellow, wet and raw, with parts peeling off.

The boy cannot be named to protect the identity of his surviving siblings.

Azlin and Ridzuan were acquitted of murder after High Court judge Valerie Thean found that the element of common intention was not sufficiently proven, since not all of the incidents involved both parents.

The judge also declined to impose life imprisonment, saying it was not appropriate because medical evidence could not determine which injuries arose from which incidents.

APEX COURT'S GROUNDS

On Tuesday, the Court of Appeal agreed with prosecutors that Ridzuan’s offence was one of the worst of its kind that warranted the maximum sentence. They noted that he abused his son in a “particularly cruel manner” and that there were no mitigating factors.

His lawyers had argued that he was a young man of 24 at the time, and his adaptive functioning was on an extremely low to low scale. The judges rejected these arguments.

A psychologist had clarified that Ridzuan had self-reported his actions "in a way that did not accurately reflect his actual adaptive function in reality".

Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon noted from the psychologist's report that Ridzuan has the ability to perform tasks "but chooses not to do so and relies on others instead".

The five appellate judges also directed both the prosecution and defence to file submissions on whether Ridzuan will still receive 24 strokes of the cane.

As for Azlin, they found that she had intended to commit all four scalding acts covered in the murder charge, even though she physically did not do so during the fourth incident.

However, she had encouraged Ridzuan to do so by waking him up when their son refused to take a bath. She also did not stop her husband from splashing hot water on the boy, and the couple shouted at him to remove his shorts.

COMMON INTENTION

In its appeal, the prosecution — led by Deputy Chief Prosecutor Mohamed Faizal Mohamed Abdul Kadir and Deputy Public Prosecutor Norine Tan — repeated their point that it has always been their case that Azlin was “factually and legally responsible” for all four scalding incidents.

In their written judgement, the five appellate judges also expanded the scope of how the legal element of common intention should be interpreted.

They highlighted the "relatively novel scenario" that this case presented. This is where a variety of acts are committed by multiple offenders, and each act can be a distinct offence because the offenders' intentions for the aggregate of the acts may be different even though they collectively intend to commit some of the acts.

The judges ultimately found that liability for individual acts committed by another person can be attributed to the offender, in order to form a "larger" criminal act that serves as the basis for the offence.

This interpretation would help to further deter group crimes and expand the criminal liability of those who commonly intend and participate in such crimes, beyond the actions they personally perpetrate, the apex court said.

The judges used this reasoning to find that Azlin's intention to cause the four scalding incidents was "clear beyond reasonable doubt".

The five-judge apex court panel comprised Chief Justice Menon along with Judges of Appeal Andrew Phang, Judith Prakash, Tay Yong Kwang and Steven Chong.

Azlin was defended by Mr Amarick Gill and Ms Cheryl Ng, while Mr Eugene Thuraisingam and Mr Chooi Jing Yen represented Ridzuan.