45-year-old bus driver Ong Pang Siew (born 17 August 1962; Chinese: 王邦守; pinyin: Wáng Bāngshŏu; Wade–Giles: Wang2 Pang1-shou3), Pan Hui's step-father, was charged with murder.
On the date of the killing, Ong went there to see his son and his conversation with Pan eventually escalated into an argument that led to the strangulation.
[1] Born in Singapore on 17 August 1962, Ong Pang Siew was the sixth of his family's twelve children, two of whom died prior to Pan's murder.
[4] However, by 2005, their marriage had considerably soured; Xiu had become a masseuse and started to spend more time with clients, leading to Ong to suspect she was having an affair.
[2] At around 9 pm (UTC+08:00) on 20 October 2007, soon after a beer-drinking session with friends,[1] Ong called Xiu to inquire why he had not been allowed to see his son Cong.
Once Ong arrived, he conversed with Pan concerning her recently acquired Singaporean citizenship and her Primary School Leaving Examinations (PSLE) test results.
[2][10][11] According to Dr Teo Eng Swee, a forensic pathologist who examined Pan's corpse, a moderate to severe degree of pressure had been applied to her neck, which also had a few superficial incisions caused by a knife; a broken blade was reportedly discovered at the scene where Pan was killed.
[16][17] On 29 September 2008, 46-year-old Ong Pang Siew stood trial at the High Court for the murder of his stepdaughter Pan Hui.
Ong was represented by Singapore's best criminal lawyer Subhas Anandan and Sunil Sudheesan,[2] while the prosecution was led by Amarjit Singh and Diane Tan.
[18] During the trial itself, Ong did not deny that he had strangled Pan, but he stated he never intended to cause her death, and his main defence was diminished responsibility.
Under Section 302 of the Singaporean Penal Code, the death penalty was mandated as the sole punishment for murder in Singapore.
During the hearing of the appeal, the appellate court had harshly reprimanded Dr Goh for his poor assessment of Ong's psychiatric state after they reviewed his reports, before they reserved judgement to a later date.
In the verdict, the three judges accepted that Ong was suffering from diminished responsibility when he killed Pan Hui, as a result of major depressive disorder and alcohol intoxication.
The crime of manslaughter was punishable by either a jail term of up to ten years, or life imprisonment, with the offender additionally liable to caning or a fine.
[44] Pan's mother was also relieved but felt sad and conflicted at the same time due to the fact that her daughter had died.
The prosecution sought the maximum sentence of life imprisonment, arguing that Ong was a dangerous person who cannot be trusted with adhering to his treatment should be ever be released, and even argued that he had killed Pan Hui in cold blood and with a premeditated intent to cause her death.
He stated that he made his decision based on the Court of Appeal's findings, and found that life imprisonment was too harsh for Ong, given that his actions were not as reprehensible to the extent of having to warrant such a sentence.
[52] Pan's funeral was conducted pro bono by notable undertaker Roland Tay,[53] who was best known for providing funeral services for Liu Hong Mei and Huang Na, both murder victims in two separate cases; the cases were solved with the respective perpetrators sentenced to hang for murder.
[62] In 2014, Ong's former lawyer Subhas Anandan's book The Best I Could was adapted into a two-season television series, which featured his former cases.
The case of Pan Hui's murder and Ong's trial was featured as the sixth episode of the show's second season.
[2] In 2017, the case of Ong Pang Siew was cited as one of the notable cases of defendants successfully raising the defence of diminished responsibility when charged with murder, when psychiatrists and legal experts were interviewed to discuss on the use of diminished responsibility as a defence in criminal trials in Singapore.