Woman who killed adoptive father over Sengkang flat loses appeal against 18-year jail term

The 35-year-old woman had hacked her father to death because he refused to share ownership of a flat she believed her mother had left to her.

Police officers cordoning off a section of the common corridor outside a flat on Rivervale Drive, where a 67-year-old man was found with multiple wounds and later declared dead on Nov 4, 2022.

This audio is generated by an AI tool.

SINGAPORE: The Court of Appeal on Wednesday (Sep 16) dismissed a woman's bid for a lower sentence for killing her adoptive father, finding nothing wrong with the sentence of 18 years previously imposed .

The court also rejected Tan Qiu Yan's argument that her motive for the killing was because her father wanted to kill her, noting that she had not raised this claim previously.

Instead, the court found that her core motivation was a belief that her father, 67-year-old Tan Ah Bang, was depriving her of her right to own a flat promised to her by her late mother.

Delivering the decision on behalf of a three-judge panel, Justice Hri Kumar Nair said that Tan had also deferred her decision to kill her father for two months after buying a chopper, demonstrating that she had the capacity to control her actions.

The 35-year-old Singaporean pleaded guilty in July 2025 to a charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

She qualified for the partial defence of diminished responsibility, where an offender's mental state reduces their responsibility for a criminal act.

She suffered from a delusional disorder of a persecutory type, with a background of schizoid personality disorder at the time of the offence.

People suffering from persecutory delusions typically hold the false belief that they are being obstructed, conspired against, attacked or harassed.

She also had delusional beliefs against a backdrop of grief related to the death of her adoptive mother who was her primary social support.

Tan was adopted as a child by her adoptive parents. The family lived in a flat in Sengkang.

Her mother was diagnosed with cancer and died after promising Tan that she would leave her share of the flat to her.

However, after the mother died in August 2022, her share of the flat passed automatically to Tan's father.

Tan began quarrelling with her father during the funeral wake over her mother's financial assets and flat ownership.

She began suspecting that her father would kick her out of the flat and learnt from a law firm that her father had become sole owner of the property.

In documents flashed on a screen in court on Wednesday, Tan wrote that she believed her father was going to kill her, so she went to her favourite restaurants and watched her favourite Japanese anime because she would die soon, so she "better watch these again".

She also wrote: "I think he was going to kill me already, but I was one step earlier."

On Nov 3, 2022, Tan heard her father on the phone and thought that he was scheming to get the flat.

She called the law firm and was told that she could not be added as the flat's owner, and she began ruminating on whether to kill her father.

She also received a card from doctors offering condolences on her mother's death and began crying.

Then, she practised using her chopper and decided to give her dad one last chance, but when she asked if he was willing to share the flat with her, he said that he would not and told her to stop bringing it up.

She decided to kill him and caught him by surprise in the toilet, hacking at him with the chopper repeatedly until she got tired.

In another document flashed in the courtroom, Tan wrote that she had initially planned to kill herself afterwards, but was "very scared of the knife".

She also said that she did not want to kill herself immediately, so she went to finish watching her anime first.

Later, she called the police who arrested her.

In a letter submitted to the court for the appeal, Tan wrote that the sentencing judge had said her father doted on her, just because he cooked for her and washed her clothes.

"This is not the truth," she wrote. She also wrote that she had hoped to have a "happy ending" and become closer to her father after her mother died, but he loved money instead of family.

Tan was represented by lawyers from the Public Defender's Office led by Mr Joseph Lum.

He argued for a lower sentence of between 12 and 15 years instead of 18, inviting the court to impose a lower sentence reflecting a higher degree of mental impairment.

He said Tan had interpreted her father's kindness on the day of the killing to mean that he was treating her well before killing her.

She also believed that he wanted to kill her in order to keep all the assets.

Deputy Public Prosecutors Chong Kee En and Gladys Lim urged the court to uphold the existing sentence, saying that it reflected her culpability and the decision to take her father's life.

The court said that although this case was undoubtedly tragic, the sentencing judge did not misapprehend the law and the sentence was neither wrong in principle nor manifestly excessive.

For culpable homicide not amounting to murder, Tan could have been jailed for life or for up to 20 years.

She cannot be caned because she is a woman.

Get our pick of top stories and thought-provoking articles in your inbox

Stay updated with notifications for breaking news and our best stories

Join our channel for the top reads for the day on your preferred chat app

这名35岁的女子因父亲拒绝与她共同拥有一套她认为是母亲留给她的公寓，而将父亲残忍杀害。

2022 年 11 月 4 日，一名 67 岁男子被发现身中多伤，后被宣布死亡。警方封锁了 Rivervale Drive 一处公寓外的公共走廊的一部分。

这段音频是由人工智能工具生成的。

新加坡：上诉法院周三（9月16日）驳回了一名女子要求减轻其杀害养父罪刑罚的请求，认为此前判处的18年监禁并无不妥。

法院还驳回了谭秋燕关于她杀人的动机是因为她父亲想杀她的说法，并指出她之前没有提出过这一说法。

相反，法院认定她的核心动机是认为她 67 岁的父亲 Tan Ah Bang 剥夺了她拥有已故母亲承诺给她的公寓的权利。

代表三名法官组成的合议庭宣判时，法官赫里·库马尔·奈尔表示，谭在购买了一把直升机后，将杀害父亲的决定推迟了两个月，这表明她有能力控制自己的行为。

这名 35 岁的新加坡男子于 2025 年 7 月承认犯有过失杀人罪，但并未构成谋杀。

她符合精神责任能力减弱的部分辩护条件，在这种情况下，犯罪者的精神状态会减轻其对犯罪行为的责任。

犯罪时，她患有被害妄想症，并有分裂型人格障碍的背景。

患有被害妄想症的人通常会错误地认为自己受到了阻挠、阴谋陷害、攻击或骚扰。

在她养母去世的悲痛背景下，她还出现了妄想，养母是她的主要社会支柱。

谭女士幼时被养父母收养。一家人住在盛港的一套公寓里。

她的母亲被诊断出患有癌症，去世前曾向谭承诺会将她那份公寓留给谭。

然而，母亲于 2022 年 8 月去世后，她在公寓中的份额自动转移给了谭的父亲。

在母亲的葬礼守灵期间，谭与父亲因母亲的财产和房产所有权问题发生争吵。

她开始怀疑父亲会把她赶出公寓，后来从一家律师事务所得知，父亲已经成为这处房产的唯一所有者。

周三在法庭屏幕上闪现的文件显示，谭写道，她认为她的父亲要杀了她，所以她去了她最喜欢的餐馆，看了她最喜欢的日本动漫，因为她很快就要死了，所以她“最好再看一遍”。

她还写道：“我觉得他本来就要杀了我，但我抢先一步。”

2022年11月3日，谭听到父亲在打电话，以为他正在密谋夺取那套公寓。

她打电话给律师事务所，被告知她不能被列为公寓的业主，于是她开始考虑是否要杀死她的父亲。

她还收到了医生们寄来的慰问卡，对她母亲的去世表示哀悼，她不禁哭了起来。

然后，她练习使用切菜器，决定再给爸爸一次机会，但当她问他是否愿意和她合租公寓时，他说他不愿意，并让她不要再提这件事。

她决定杀了他，于是趁他上厕所不备，用砍刀反复砍他，直到她累了为止。

在法庭上播放的另一份文件中，谭写道，她最初计划事后自杀，但“非常害怕刀”。

她还说她不想马上自杀，所以先去看完她的动漫。

后来，她报警，警察逮捕了她。

在提交给法院的上诉信中，谭写道，判刑法官说她父亲溺爱她，仅仅因为他给她做饭、给她洗衣服。

“这不是事实，”她写道。她还写道，母亲去世后，她曾希望有个“幸福的结局”，能和父亲更亲近一些，但他爱钱胜过爱家人。

谭先生的代理律师是来自公共辩护律师办公室的约瑟夫·卢姆先生。

他辩称应判处 12 至 15 年的较轻刑罚，而不是 18 年，并请求法庭判处较轻的刑罚，以反映其精神损害程度较高。

他说，谭女士将父亲在杀人当天的善意解读为父亲在杀害她之前对她很好。

她还认为他想杀了她，以便独占所有财产。

副检察官张启恩和林嘉欣敦促法庭维持原判，称该判决反映了她的罪责以及她夺取父亲生命的决定。

法院表示，虽然这起案件无疑是悲剧性的，但判决法官并没有误解法律，判决在原则上既没有错误，也没有明显过重。

对于过失杀人罪（不构成谋杀），谭某可能被判处终身监禁或最高 20 年监禁。

她不能被鞭打，因为她是女性。

订阅我们的邮件，即可获取精选热点新闻和引人深思的文章。

订阅通知，第一时间获取突发新闻和精彩报道。

加入我们的频道，即可在您常用的聊天应用上获取当日热门文章。