SINGAPORE - A knife-wielding man who was shot by the police after he went on a substance-fuelled rampage in Clementi in 2022 had his jail term of two years and nine months reduced by six months on Monday, following his appeal to the High Court.
In his written judgment, Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon accepted that Soo Cheow Wee, 50, was suffering from three mental conditions, and that he had taken illicit substances which caused him to turn violent and which contributed substantially to his offences.
Soo has a history of schizophrenia and also suffered from polysubstance dependence and psychosis.
Chief Justice Menon said that in cases of an offender with multiple mental conditions, the extent of that person’s insight into his conditions and their effects would have an impact on his sentence.
This means that when an offender is aware of the effects of his mental conditions, but nonetheless chooses to act in a way that makes him more susceptible to the symptoms, the offender’s self-induced condition will generally not be a mitigating factor, he said.
But in Soo’s case, there were gaps in the psychiatric evidence that could shed light on whether he knew that his substance abuse would result in violent psychotic behaviour, said Chief Justice Menon. In the absence of evidence that Soo was aware of the link between his substance abuse and violent behaviour, the Chief Justice found that his medical condition substantially reduced his responsibility, and constituted a mitigating factor.
On the morning of Feb 17, 2022, Soo went to Geylang, where he took cough syrup and diazepam – a drug used to treat anxiety disorders – without a prescription.
That night, after calling the police from his mother’s flat in Clementi to report that someone wanted to kill him and her, he left the unit with a knife wrapped in newspaper.
Soo, who said he heard a voice telling him to slash people, randomly attacked three passers-by, then flagged a taxi and asked to be taken to Clementi Police Division.
As they were nearing the station, Soo tried to alight from the moving vehicle and fell onto the road. When the taxi driver stopped the vehicle and checked on him, Soo charged at him.
Soo then turned his attention on the police officers on duty at the entrance of the station, shouting incoherently. He ignored commands to drop the knife, and was shot in the arm after he suddenly charged at one of the officers.
He was arrested and taken to the National University Hospital.
In October 2022, he was sentenced to two years and nine months’ jail by a district court after he pleaded guilty to one count of causing hurt with a dangerous weapon, two counts of criminal intimidation, and one count of causing hurt to a public servant.
In April 2023, Soo appealed for a lower jail term of 23 months. His lawyer, Mr Chooi Jing Yen, argued that there was a contributory link between his mental conditions and the offences, and hence, Soo was less culpable than a person with no psychiatric conditions.
But the prosecution appealed for a longer jail term, seeking at least five years’ corrective training – a prison regime for repeat offenders – or an imprisonment term of 57 to 63 months.
Deputy Attorney-General Tai Wei Shyong argued that Soo’s mental conditions should not be treated as a mitigating factor because he had voluntarily taken the substances, knowing that it would trigger his psychosis and increase his propensity for violence.
