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SINGAPORE – A 46-year-old man in mental health condition was ordered arrested on Tuesday (Nov. 30) at the discretion of the president after the High Court found after a trial that he had killed his 75-year-old father.
Judge Valerie Thean concluded that Tan Kok Meng, who was alone for three hours with his father in their Bedok North apartment, had caused the older man’s death on November 13, 2015.
Although Tan was found to have committed the alleged acts, according to the law, he was acquitted of murder due to his mental incapacity.
Two psychiatrists at the Institute of Mental Health diagnosed him with schizophrenia and found that he was probably not in his right mind during the murder. One of them said that Tan was also in a state of acute drug intoxication during the incident, having taken methamphetamine at the time.
Tan will be confined in a psychiatric institution, prison or some other place of safe custody.
There is no minimum period of detention and the mental state of the detainee is periodically reviewed until he can be discharged.
After the verdict, Tan appeared to be in a good mood and the court allowed him to speak with some members of the family.
He was tried for murder and charged with inflicting multiple blows to the victim’s face and strangling him.
During the trial, the court heard that Tan’s family members described Tan as “unstable” on the day of the crime.
His mother, Ms. Toh Meow Siang, noticed that he had been looking dazed for the past two days and had been pacing the floor.
Before Madame Toh left the flat around 2.30pm, she told her husband not to let her son go out.
About three hours later, she returned to find her husband gasping for air, lying in a pool of blood under his head. Tan, who was sitting on the couch, did not answer her questions.
Madame Toh left the apartment to seek help from the neighbors and when she returned, she yelled at Tan, asking him why he had killed her father.
So, Tan walked over to the older man, sat on his abdomen, and put his hands on his father’s upper chest before she pushed him away.
Paramedics arrived shortly after.
While the victim was being treated, Tan, who was covered in dried blood, suddenly got up from the sofa where he had been sitting in a daze.
Ignoring the paramedics’ pleas, he strangled his father while muttering “I want him to die” in Mandarin for a minute or so, then sat back on the couch.
A paramedic said she yelled at Tan to stop, but he ignored her.
Police officers arrived shortly after and arrested Tan.
He told them that he used his own hands to attack his father, that they had a strained relationship, and that the older man had called him “good for nothing.”
The victim stopped breathing in the ambulance and was pronounced dead at Changi General Hospital.
An autopsy found that the older Tan died from strangulation and aspiration of blood.
Tan was defended by Mr. Favian Kang and Mr. Nichol Yeo.
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