Dr Rajesh Jacob1
1Promises Healthcare, Singapore
Biography:
Dr Rajesh Jacob is a senior consultant psychiatrist in Promises Healthcare. He is trained in general psychiatry and forensic psychiatry. He has previously worked in the NHS and he has been working in Singapore for the past 16 years. He regularly carries out forensic assessments for high stakes death penalty cases involving homicide and drug trafficking and attends courts regularly as an expert witness. He has given several talks on forensic psychiatry in Singapore and in the Asean region and in South Asia.
Abstract:
SKM was a Malaysian truck driver who was convicted of an offence of drug trafficking and was sentenced to death in March 2018 in Singapore. Following his appeal, the Court of Appeal ordered a retrial.
A voir dire was held (trial within a trial) to see if his statements recorded during his remand were admissible. His case turned on 7 confessions made in his statements recorded by the Investigating officer where he had accepted to bringing in illegal drugs into Singapore and handing them over to another person. He had initially denied delivering the drugs when he was arrested and in his cautioned statement when the death penalty notice was read out to him. The defence counsel representing him argued that SKM had not given the seven confessions voluntarily as he had been induced by the Investigating officer to give these false statements. The defence counsel also had to prove that this inducement had affected SKM as he had mild intellectual disability leading him to falsely confess. Expert evidence was given in the high court by me and a clinical psychologist , which was challenged by the expert witnesses engaged by the prosecution. We opined that he had mild intellectual disability which led to him having a higher risk of falsely confessing. The judge ruled that the 7 confessions were inadmissible, after which the prosecution reduced the capital charge to a non-capital charge, and he was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment and his death penalty was overturned.