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Man who tried to attack cop with stun gun given corrective training, caning and fine

Singapore state courts (Yahoo News Singapore file photo)
Singapore state courts (Yahoo News Singapore file photo)

He tried to attack a police officer with a stun gun while being placed under arrest.

Sivakandesh, 24, also committed a slew of offences against police officers who arrested him on separate occasions, including spitting and using abusive words on them – all within six months of his release from jail for previous offences.

On Wednesday (20 June), Sivakandesh, who goes by one name, was sentenced to five years of corrective training and another 209 days of jail for breaching his remission order. This means that Sivankandesh had breached the condition that he would not reoffend while on early release from jail. He was also ordered to be caned eight strokes and fined $4,000.

Sivakandesh pleaded guilty on 9 May to two counts of causing hurt to two different police officers, one count of theft, one count of possessing a flick knife, one count of importing an unlicensed stun gun, which was impounded at a post office, two separate counts of using criminal force and abusive words on the same police officer.

Six charges, including using abusive words towards a police officer and possession of scheduled weapons, were considered for his sentence.

It is unclear whether the stun gun that Sivakandesh used on the officer was imported.

Sivakandesh was found with the stun gun when police officers received a report of him behaving suspiciously in a carpark near Block 624 Yishun Ring Road on 10 January last year. He had broken into a Mercedes Benz belonging to 67-year-old Ong Fook Thim and stolen a purse and a pair of sunglasses.

They spoke to Sivakandesh, who told them the car belonged to him. When officers requested for his particulars, Sivakandesh gave them an expired passport belonging to a Sivaganesh and a name card with Ong’s particulars.

Sivakandesh put up a struggle when officers decided to arrest him. After he was handcuffed, Sivakandesh aimed a stun gun on an officer’s left leg and discharged it with the intention of hurting him. However, the officer moved away and disarmed him.

Between October 2016 and 18 November 2016, Sivakandesh ordered a stun gun online. The stun gun was discovered at the Singapore Post Centre and a police report was lodged.

On 21 August 2016, Sivakandesh was hanging out with two friends in the vicinity of Northpoint City in Yishun armed with a stun gun. When the police approached him, Sivakandesh dropped the stun gun on a grass patch and tried to walk away when the police approached him. He put up a struggle when police attempted to detain him and hit one of the officers on the nose.

The incident happened less than a month after he was released from prison after being convicted of other violence-related offences in March 2015. He was sentenced to two years’ jail and 12 strokes of the cane for voluntarily causing hurt and possessing an offensive weapon.

Sivakandesh also has a track record of absconding bail or offending while on bail.

In September 2016, while on court bail, Sivakandesh got into another altercation with the police after he was arrested for other offences. He used expletives on an officer while in a police vehicle and spit at the same officer’s face.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Jason Nim asked for corrective training to be imposed on Sivakandesh given that he was a “recalcitrant offender who has re-offended persistently… in spite of the escalation of punishment meted out against him”.

Corrective training lasts between five years and 14 years, and offenders are not given remission for good behaviour, as opposed to a jail term.

DPP Nim said that Sivakandesh had violent tendencies as he showed no hesitation in resorting to using weapons, even against a police officer. Sivakanesh also showed a “worrying pro-criminal mindset”, he added.

“He has demonstrated complete contempt for the authority of the police officers in using violence on them or in subjecting them to verbal abuse (of a significant level of vitriol),” said DPP Nim.

In mitigation documents, Sivakandesh’s lawyer, Ashwin Ganapathy asked for a jail term of three years and two months instead of corrective training.

The lawyer said that imposing corrective training would be “unduly disproportionate” in Sivakandesh’s case. He also noted that Sivakandesh had expressed remorse for his offences in the corrective training suitability report, which would “assist him in the initial rehabilitation process during his incarceration”.