\n<\/p>\n
The man, Deepak Singh, bought a rare Rolex GMT Saru with the intention of selling it for profit.<\/p>\n
After getting the watch, he thought he may have been cheated with a fake and wanted to palm it off on an unsuspecting buyer.<\/p>\n
While under the impression the Rolex was fake, he sold it to a watch retailer and attempted to flee the country.<\/p>\n
The watch was eventually certified as authentic and original by the Rolex Service Centre after the crime was reported to the police.<\/p>\n
Since the watch was genuine, Singh could not have cheated anyone about its authenticity \u2013 making it an \u201cimpossible attempt\u201d at cheating that could not be completed.<\/p>\n
The prosecutor referred to a past judgment by the Court of Appeal, noting that there are two situations where an offence of attempting to commit a crime may typically arise.<\/p>\n
The first is where the accused has not completed what they intended to do \u2013 for example, because they were inept or someone intervened.<\/p>\n
The second is where the accused has done all they intended to do, but the offence was not completed for some reason.<\/p>\n
In the second situation, this may be because the accused was operating under a mistaken belief about something.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis mistaken belief lies at the heart of the problem of impossible attempts because it leads to dissonance\u201d between the act the offender intended to carry out, and the act they in fact carried out, said the court in the previous judgment.<\/p>\n
Singh\u2019s conviction is under Section 511 of the Penal Code for an attempt to commit an offence. He was not convicted of cheating per se.<\/p>\n
The legal test for conviction is whether he intended to commit the offence, and then whether he took a substantial step towards committing it, said Mr Mervyn Cheong of Advocatus Law LLP.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn other words, once the accused intended to cheat and took concrete action towards doing so, the offence is established, even if no victim was ultimately cheated,\u201d said Mr Cheong.<\/p>\n
Apart from selling the watch, Singh took other steps in his attempt to cheat.<\/p>\n
He showed a forged copy of his passport details to the buyer in order to escape criminal liability.<\/p>\n
He also ignored calls from the buyer, who had grown suspicious, and booked a flight to leave Singapore that night. He was caught at the airport.<\/p>\n
In offences of attempted crime, it is wrong to take reference from what an accused actually did, rather than what they intended to do, the Court of Appeal said in a previous case about impossible attempts.<\/p>\n
\u201cCases involving impossible attempts must be resolved by focusing on the criminality of the intended act,\u201d said the judges.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf that is sufficiently established, it will not generally matter even if what the accused person in fact did would not objectively amount to an offence, such as if a would-be murderer stabbed a bolster mistakenly thinking it was his intended victim.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThinking about doing something wrong is not enough on its own,\u201d said Ms Noelle Teoh, an associate lawyer at Gloria James-Civetta & Co.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere must also be some real steps taken to put that intention into action.\u201d<\/p>\n
You might hear the words \u201cmens rea\u201d and \u201cactus reus\u201d in discussions about this.<\/p>\n
\u201cMens rea\u201d is a Latin phrase meaning the \u201cguilty mind\u201d that refers to what the accused was thinking or planning at the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cActus reus\u201d, meaning the \u201cguilty act\u201d, is what the accused actually did, added Ms Teoh.<\/p>\n
Mr Cheong said both elements \u2013 intention and action \u2013 must be present for an offence to be made out of an attempted crime.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the case of attempt offences, the act is a substantial step towards committing the intended crime,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Court of Appeal has said that the offender is required to have taken sufficient steps in attempting to commit the crime, which acts as a safeguard to ensure they are not punished purely for guilty intent.<\/p>\n
Section 511 of the Penal Code describes examples of attempt offences, such as trying to pick a pocket that is empty.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnother classic example that has been cited in case law is the example of a man who takes his own umbrella, believing it to be someone else\u2019s, with intent to steal it,\u201d said Ms Tan Jun Yin, partner at Trident Law Corporation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n