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.
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