A 27-year-old woman has been sentenced to four weeks in jail and a five-year driving ban, after the High Court overruled a lower court’s claim that her culpability as a “sleepy driver” was a less severe form of negligence, Channel NewsAsia reports.
Hue An Li had just completed a 12-hour work shift in March last year when she decided to meet a friend instead of going home to rest. 12 hours later, just after 7am, she blacked out at the wheel and crashed into a lorry ferrying foreign workers, causing it to spin and flip to its side.
One worker died and 11 others were injured, including a victim that ended up paralysed from the waist down.
Chief Prosecutor Tai Wei Shyong had argued at the Magistrate’s Appeal yesterday that Hue should get jail time on top of her driving ban because she had knowingly put herself in a sleep-deprived state and chose to drive despite it.
The three judges who heard the case, Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, Judge of Appeal Chao Hick Tin and Judicial Commissioner Tan Siong Thye, agreed.
Photo: Singapore Supreme Court; Wikimedia Commons
