Lim, who stole four Rolex watches worth S$80,000, fled to Malaysia immediately after the crime but was arrested two days later, and extradited back to Singapore for trial.
[4] On 22 June 1995, 28-year-old Lim Chwee Soon, who armed himself with an axe, entered the Kee Hing Hung Rolex boutique at People's Park Complex to commit robbery.
However, it was a poorly executed attempt as he was quickly subdued by the employees of the goldsmith shop, who all used chairs to hit Lim and restrained him.
Inside Lim's hotel room, the Malaysian officers discovered a total of two Colt .45 semi-automatic pistols and a hundred rounds of ammunition, including nine hollow-point bullets.
[16] Lim was charged with discharging his pistol seven times and having caused hurt to How Sau Che, as well as armed robbery, and would be sentenced to death if found guilty.
[17][18][19] Both men also faced additional charges for the previous robberies and thefts they committed prior to the latest crime Lim got involved in.
[22][23][24] The arrest of her two elder sons was a huge emotional blow for Lim's mother, who was unable to understand why did both of them went astray and embark on a life of crime despite being obedient children when young.
[25] Lim's mother did not tell her husband for fear he may encounter an accident at his workplace, and hoped that her other three children, who were still of school-going age, did not end up like their two older brothers.
In 1993, two years before his crime, Lau lost his job and it led to his wife divorcing him and taking custody of their three children and left him.
During sentencing, Justice M P H Rubin reportedly told Lau that he was fortunate to have escaped the gallows after the prosecution decided to review his case and reduced the charges against him.
During the trial itself, the victim How Sau Che was one of the witnesses who testified for the prosecution, and the CCTV camera footage that captured the robbery itself were also presented as evidence.
[36][37][38] Lim even engaged a psychiatrist Douglas Kong to help him testify that he was suffering from diminished responsibility, due to a brain damage resulting from a childhood injury and a "pervasive disorder from development".
However, in rebuttal, the prosecution's psychiatrist Tan Soo Teng testified that Lim never suffered from an abnormality of the mind when he committed the robbery and shot How Sau Che.
[43] In his judgement, Justice Sinnathuray rejected Lim Chwee Soon's defence of diminished responsibility, find that he was of sound mind when he fired the shots and committed the armed robbery on that fateful day of 30 October 1995.
[46][47][48] Another first case was that of Ng Theng Shuang, a Malaysian gunman who discharged a firearm and injured a security officer and two other bystanders during a 1992 robbery attempt.
[56][57] In the aftermath, Singaporean crime show Crimewatch re-enacted the case of Lim and it was aired in September 1997 as the seventh episode of its annual season.