taking her scuba-diving in what he knew were dangerous waters and when, as he knew, she was a novice scuba- diver; ·
Ang cutting her flipper causing it to come off in the water and causing her to panic and to get into greater danger; and · his delaying, on a false pretence, for some ten minutes, instead of himself diving in or joining her, or making any effort to rescue her.
In these circumstances the judge’s direction to the jury as to how circumstantial evidence should be regarded was wrong. It was incumbent upon him to consider separately the various acts and omissions for which Ang was alleged to be responsible, and which taken together, made up the alleged crime. Instead, the judge invited the jury to lump all the circumstantial evidence together. He should have brought to their minds that the various pieces of circumstantial evidence were directed respectively to various acts and omissions, the combination of which the prosecution relied upon as constituting the crime of murder.
The petition said that the ‘main ingredient in the alleged crime of murder’ was the cutting of Jenny’s flipper. Ang’s act of cutting it, they submitted, was strongly in issue, ‘and there was some evidence to support the defence contention that it could not have been cut by Sunny Ang at the time and manner suggested by the prosecution’. Had the judge directed the jury correctly on the weight and effect of circumstantial evidence, he would necessarily have invited the jury to consider how the case stood if they were not satisfied that Ang had in fact cut Jenny’s flipper. He should have directed the jury in this context: that they should be satisfied that Ang induced or persuaded Jenny to scuba-dive in dangerous waters and so caused her death. The petition also argued that there was no direct evidence that Ang ever persuaded or induced Jenny to go to the particular spot where she made the dive from which she did not return. There was no direct evidence that Ang cut her flipper.
The petition complained that the Appeals Court followed the learned trial judge in taking the prosecution’s evidence as a whole, instead of distinguishing the various pieces of evidence in relation to the different acts or omission which the prosecution said constituted the offence of murder. “The cutting of the strap of the flipper, either by Ang or with his knowledge, must necessarily have been evidence in a different category.” The Appeals Court, the petition pointed out, said “Ang ‘allowed’ Jenny to go down into waters which he knew were dangerous.” For all these matters complained of, submitted Ang’s legal advisers, he had suffered ‘substantial and grave injustice’, and in consequence Ang petitioned for special leave to appeal against the judgment of the Appeals Court.
The petition was denied.
Psychopath
Ang was a psychopath. Two psychiatrists came to this conclusion after examining him in Changi Jail,
Dr Wong Yip Chong, then the government psychiatrist, saw Ang five times in 16 days in October 1966. He also interviewed his father, mother, sister and two of the brothers, as well as several members of the public with close association with Ang in the past. Dr Wong found Ang in good physical condition, and noted that his intelligence quotient (IQ) was recorded as 128-within the superior intelligence range.
Ang had a good academic record and was among the first 10 in the primary classes and maintained these positions to the secondary level except when he finished at the bottom of the class through playing truant. He completed his Senior Cambridge in 1955, and obtained distinctions in English and Science, and a C3 for Mathematics, thereby obtaining a Grade I certificate. This was obtained with the minimum of effort. Ang claimed that he never studied until the last two weeks of the examination. According to his form master, Maurice Baker, later to become Singapore’s first High Commissioner to India (now professor of English at the University of Singapore), Ang was a fairly quiet boy but bright, and with a great sense of adventure. “If there were a war, he would have distinguished himself.” He was apparently a likeable boy, though conceited. His school records show his conduct to have been good.
In early 1956 he went to work with Dunlops, but resigned after three months in anticipation of discovery by the company of his having ‘irresponsibly and improperly’ diverted some of the company’s products to his own home. He idled away the rest of the year, and in 1957 became a student teacher at Bedok Boys’ School for about six months. His conduct as a student teacher was deplorable. True to his philosophy of maximum results from minimum effort he would leave his pupils’ books to be corrected by his sister or mother. According to the records at the Teachers’ Training College, Sunny Ang was the only student never to attend any classes throughout the term. In 1958 he returned to teaching at St Thomas School, a private school, for one year. There his irresponsible behaviour continued. He was often away from his class. On one occasion he misappropriated school fees, though he later managed to return them to the school.
But in between these two periods of teaching, Ang had tried to become a commercial airline pilot. In May 1957 he was released by the Director of Education from his teacher-in-training course to train as an airline pilot with the aid of a Colombo Plan scholarship. He had always been interested in flying, and earlier that month (on 10 May 1957), he had qualified for his student pilot licence. He obtained his private pilot licence on 29 November, and passed his examinations for his Restricted Flight Radio and Telephone Operator’s Licence in May the following year.
This Colombo Plan scholarship training programme started off with six selected students, but only four were to be chosen for advanced training to commercial pilot level in India. In terms of efficiency, as reflected in the number of hours registered to qualify for solo flying, Ang ranked fourth with 13 hours. But he was not chosen. The fifth student, with over 20 hours, was chosen in his stead. Ang was greatly disappointed: he considered it a gross distortion of justice. He was determined to go on with his training in Singapore, and his mother pawned her jewellery, and borrowed money to enable him to do this. By the time he was finally grounded in May 1959 he had completed 139 flying hours: it had cost his mother nearly $5,000.
Ang admitted to Dr Wong that he had been involved in a number of irresponsible flying incidents, such as skimming over the water and the tops of coconut trees. He would come down low over house-tops to salute friends or a relative, or to look at girls sunbathing on the roof-tops.
Ang also admitted with nonchalance that he was an inveterate liar. His arrogance and his conceit were noted by Civil Aviation officials and his flying instructor. Ang was also over-confident, which is a dangerous disposition in flying. These were in fact the reasons why Ang was not selected for further training to commercial pilot level: an arrogant, conceited, over-confident person, given to irresponsible behaviour, does not often make a good pilot.
Ang was grounded in May 1959 following an emergency landing. He misread a compass and had run out of fuel. At the inquiry he lied and said he had a bird in his engine. This inaccurate explanation was not accepted, and he was not allowed to fly again. He should never have been allowed to fly in the first place because of defective eyesight. A friend took the first examination for him. The second he passed by learning the eye-chart by heart.
His hopes to become a commercial pilot dashed, Ang returned to teaching for about a year. Early in 1960 he became a chicken farmer. He cleared the land, built cages and reared thousands of chickens, and ducks as well for a time. He managed to make about $300 a month, and the farm thrived except when an epidemic wiped out almost all his stock. But he carried on, in spite of a financial loss, and in 1964 he also began to plant tomatoes. He was still farming when he was arrested and charged with Jenny’s murder.
Ang’s sex life seems to have been normal, if enthusiastic. He confessed to getting several girls into trouble: some of them had abortions. He told one girl he wanted to marry her and he induced her mother to lend him various sums of money totalling between $6,000 and $7,000. Much of this money he spent on paying for a Sunbeam sports car which he drove in the 1961 Singapore Grand Prix. When the girl’s mother realized his duplicity she made him a bankrupt. He was so enamoured with another girl that he would talk to her on the telephone when she was away for as long as two and a half hours at a time. He ran up telephone bills of $500 a month. His diary revealed that he had to sell about 200 chickens to settle these bills.
Ang liked girls, but not alcohol, and neither did he gamble. He never frequented night-clubs and he did not know how to dance. All his life he had few friends. Ang was faddish about food. He would never eat pork, the favourite meat of practically all the Chinese. He would eat no other meat than the meat of a chicken.
He was egocentric and vain. His physical health and appearance meant much to him. He would keep fit with a careful diet and regular physical exercises including running. Pimples would seriously upset him. He paid careful attention to his teeth. He was dissatisfied with himself for not being taller than five feet and six inches. For years he
