He said the prosecutor was unjust. “I did not take part in the riot. Robert Choo has a grudge against me. The prosecutor is very unfair.”
Tan Tien Lay decided to remain silent. No witnesses came forward on his behalf. Both were defended by Mr Tann.
Mr Advani then addressed the jury on behalf of Kwek Kok Wah, who made an unsworn statement. He called no witnesses. In his statement he said he did not riot.
Teo Han Teck, formerly a seaman, claimed he had helped Tailford by rubbing his chest. He helped to carry him to the shade of a big tree, then he bandaged his head with a towel. Teo said he stood up to help when an officer called upon them to help and told them: ‘You will be released earlier’. That, said Teo, ‘was one of the golden opportunities which I seized’. Ng Chuan Puay elected to remain silent. He called no witnesses.
Mr Koh’s two clients, Tay Teck Bok and Aziz bin Salim (alias Terry) had elected to remain silent, but Aziz at the last minute changed his mind and gave evidence on oath. Mr Koh addressed the Court briefly on behalf of Aziz, Aziz spoke English. He had been educated at Bartley Secondary School and had left in form five, the top form. His father had been manager of a big cinema in the suburb of Katong. Aziz wore spectacles. He said he was in the mosque when the siren sounded. Eight witnesses had identified him as a rioter. He said he couldn’t understand why. They were either mistaken or had grudges against him. The first witness who said he saw Aziz taking part in the rioting was Chong Sek Ling, ‘otherwise known as Lau Hor Kia, the Number One General of the 13 Wonders Secret Society’. Aziz insisted that Chong was mistaken. Aziz said he knew Cartoon (Weng Loke Hai) had a grudge against him. A Malay witness also had a grudge against him because Aziz had accused him of stealing rations from the kitchen. Aziz said he did not recognise anybody rioting because he never had his glasses on. The Judge observed that he had worn his glasses throughout the trial. Aziz said he was never armed but he admitted drinking from a bottle a rioter offered him and having drunk from it he threw the empty bottle on the grass. A witness testified that he saw Aziz in the kitchen at the time he was supposed to be rioting.
Mr Jumabhoy’s client, Lim Kim Sian, changed his mind about giving evidence on oath and decided instead to make an unsworn statement from the dock. Koh Ah Tiaw remained silent.
Twenty-one year old Chia Tiong Gunn, a cobbler on the island, gave evidence on oath. He said he ran into the jungle when trouble started and stayed there until the police arrived.
Chia said that the warder who gave evidence against him had a grudge against him. They had quarrelled when the warder was himself a detainee. Counsel: When was this? Chia: He stole my sea-shells. Counsel: Yes. I want to know when. Chia: In 1961 when he was a police detainee. Counsel: What sort of sea-shells did he steal from you? Chia: It is a form of sea-shell: we call it ‘King Kong’. They are coloured shells. They can be displayed. Counsel: How many did he steal from you? Chia: When he was attempting to steal my sea-shells I caught him. Judge: You caught him red-handed did you? Chia: Yes. Counsel: What happened? Chia: I had an argument with him. I accused him of being a thief in Pulau Senang. He was ashamed and started to quarrel with me. Counsel: Apart from this incident, was there any other incident? Chia: Yes, when he became Settlement Assistant he asked me to make a pair of shoes. I refused and he told me to look out. Counsel: And you say it is because of these two incidents that he has identified you? Chia: Yes.
Kok Teck Thow (known as ‘Bamboo Head’) also gave evidence on oath. He was 30 years old. He told his counsel that he sent secret letters to relatives and others through a settlement assistant whom he identified. This man collected the money relatives sent in this irregular manner and he and Kok each took a percentage as commission. Kok said four or five detainees were doing this. Kok admitted that he had beaten up a witness a month prior to the rioting ‘for dirtying the hall after I had cleaned it’. Consequently, the man bore him a grudge.
Low Chai Kiat, defended by Mr Braga, was a secondary schoolboy, a former Boy Scout. He claimed he was no rioter. Indeed he had gone to Tailford’s assistance.
Mr Braga did not deny there was a riot, though his three clients, he said, did not take part. The riot was really a rebellion. They were rebelling against unjust treatment when they destroyed the settlement which they had by their sweat and toil developed into a ‘showpiece of the world’. Counsel insisted that the prosecution had failed miserably to prove the charges against the accused. He argued that Dutton had been over-enthusiastic and not treated the men as human beings. Low tide came in twice a day and Dutton had worked the men on the jetty on both tides every twenty-four hours. Men were exhausted and so hungry that they had even to ask for bread in advance and to have it deducted from their rations later. Mr Braga said that human emotions were like the spring of a watch. If the watch was properly wound it would serve well. If this was not handled with care it would require repairs. If it was given a final twist it became irreparable. “And so it was on the day of the riot. The safety valve went loose and the detainees went berserk.” Counsel said he supported Mr Ball’s contention that Pulau Senang had not been run under prison regulations as it should have been.
During the next two weeks, from 10 to 27 February, defence counsel made their submissions. On 5 March, Crown Counsel concluded his address to the jury. Then Judge Buttrose began his summing up.
The Summing Up
“You have been told,” observed the Judge, “that it was better that 10 guilty men should go free rather than one innocent man should be convicted. Of course it would be better, but that is not good enough. It is our duty to see that such a situation does not arise. That such a situation should be allowed to exist and to grow and to develop in stature would, in my opinion, constitute a grave reflection on the administration of the criminal jurisprudence of any civilized country. It is, gentlemen of the jury, more than ever necessary in this present day and age that the rule of law should be proclaimed aloud for all to hear: that those who offend against it shall be punished; and those who observe and obey it shall be allowed to live in freedom and security under it.” He reminded them that ‘it is on the evidence and the evidence alone, given before you and nothing else, that you must decide this case’. He told them to dismiss from their minds entirely the question of some of the accused going sick and holding up the proceedings. The accused, ‘having been certified as fit, the trial proceeded and the incident closed. It had nothing to do with the issues with which you are concerned-namely whether the 58 accused are guilty or not guilty of these three charges of murder’.
He explained that there were four main elements of the charge. First, that all the accused were members of an unlawful assembly. Second, that the common objects of that unlawful assembly were to cause the death of Dutton, Singham, Tan Kok Hian, Cartoon, Chia Teck Whee, and others, and to cause the destruction of Pulau Senang. The third is that while these 58 were members of that unlawful assembly, one or more members of the assembly committed murder by causing the death of Dutton, Singham and Tan Kok Hian. The fourth ingredient is that murder was an offence, which the members of that unlawful assembly knew to be likely to be committed in the prosecution of the common objects of that assembly.
The Judge gave an illustration of a common object of an unlawful assembly. “Supposing two persons go out one night to steal a bicycle which they found on the side of the road and, as they were taking it away in the furtherance of their common object to steal, the owner suddenly appears and endeavours to prevent them, and one of them suddenly pulls a gun from his pocket and shoots the owner through the heart and kills him-and you will assume, for the purposes of this illustration that the agreement between the two accused was simply to steal the bicycle and nothing more. Well, then the man who pulled out the gun and shot the owner through the heart would have been exceeding the common intention of the two, which was merely to steal the bicycle. One, therefore would not be guilty of murder, unless it could be shown that they had agreed beforehand that should the owner resist they were prepared to kill him, and had weapons with them to do so.
“What was the common object of this unlawful assembly? Was it merely to riot, attack the prison staff, knock them about, damage a building or two? Or was it rather to wipe Pulau Senang off the map and all it stood for, including those in authority and anyone else who thwarted or opposed this unlawful assembly in achieving this common object, this end? Or was it perhaps, as Major James told us, an act of open and deliberate defiance against the Singapore Government to show that Pulau Senang, and those in authority there, could not contain these police detainees?
What is murder? Murder is committed if the act which caused death is done firstly with the intention of causing death, or secondly with the intention of causing such bodily injury as the accused knew to be likely to cause death, or thirdly with the intention of causing bodily injury sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death.
