On 14 January 2014, inside his workplace in Geylang, 50-year-old brothel owner Chan Lie Sian (陈烈山 Chén Lìeshān),[a] alias Benny Seow, brutally assaulted his subordinate, 35-year-old William Tiah Hung Wai (程宏伟 Chéng Hóngwěi), over a sum of S$6,500 that was missing from his workplace, and he suspected that Tiah stole the money.
[8][9] 50-year-old Chan, who was already in custody for voluntarily inflicting grievous hurt to Tiah, had his charge amended to murder, an offence which carried the death penalty in Singapore.
Dr Wee verified that Tiah's head was struck at least eight times, and the force exerted with each blow was sufficient to cause multiple lacerations and extensive skull fractures.
Chan was represented by Kelvin Lim, while the prosecution was led by Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) April Phang.
[15][16] However, DPP Phang argued that based on the forensic report, Chan's attack was "vicious and relentless", which proved that he possessed the intention to kill Tiah for allegedly stealing his cash, and his guilt was corroborated by his acts of preventing other people from calling the ambulance, telling the bystanders to clean up the scene, and he disposed of the murder weapon, showing that Chan was meticulous in trying to cover up his crime and downplay his responsibility, and his mental state was not affected by drugs or alcohol at the time of the murder.
[23] While the prosecution argued that Chan's conviction for murdering William Tiah with intent to kill ought to be upheld, Chan's lawyer Wendell Wong argued that there was no specific intention on Chan's part to cause death, as he only attacked Tiah to teach him a lesson over the missing money, and some of his blows were not aiming at the head but on other parts of the body, and only one of the blows was fatal; hence his conviction should be reduced to voluntarily causing grievous hurt, which may carry a sentence of up to 15 years' jail with caning.
[27][28] Also, Chan's lack of intent to cause death was corroborated by his act of throwing water on Tiah's face to attempt to revive him, and threatened to further attack the victim once he woke up under the eyes of a witness.
In relation to Chan's sentence, the appellate court said the death sentence was not warranted as Chan had not acted in a manner that displayed blatant disregard for human life, and he was not as vicious as the offender in the precedent case of Kho Jabing, which stated that the death penalty for murder with no intent to kill should be reserved for the exceptional cases of murder that sparked an outrage of the community's feelings and demonstrated an offender's viciousness and/or a blatant disregard for human life.
[36] For instance, in 2021, Chan's case was referenced to by High Court judge Valerie Thean, who sentenced a former Indonesian maid Daryati to life imprisonment for murdering her employer.
Justice Thean found that in comparison to the circumstances of Chan's case, Daryati's conduct was not sufficiently abhorrent and callous to call for the imposition of the maximum punishment of death, which the prosecution did not seek during her trial.