Public Prosecutor v YGL [2026] SGYC 5

Facts

The youth (“Y”)—a 15-year-old male—pleaded guilty in March 2026 to 5 charges, and consented to 9 additional charges being taken into consideration for the purpose of making my dispositional orders. He also pleaded guilty in April 2026 to a further 3 charges, and consented to a further 4 charges being taken into consideration. The charges are reproduced below. (The charge numbers in the charge sheets and statements of facts do not necessarily correspond to the number in the markings, and I have arranged the charges chronologically below. In my grounds below, I have used the numbers below.)

Dispositional orders

In terms of the dispositional orders, I called for a probation suitability report (“PSR”).

The probation officer (“PO”) assessed that Y was unsuitable for probation, and that Y’s risk of offending was very high. The PO recommended that Y be placed in the Singapore Boys’ Home, being a juvenile rehabilitation centre, for 24 months. The Prosecution agreed with the PO’s recommendations and sought likewise.

Main observations from PSR

I begin my analysis with 4 areas of observations in the PSR. In my view, each of these areas supports the conclusion that probation is unsuitable for Y.

In my view, the first and most significant area of consideration concerns Y’s offending. As the PO pointed out, this reveals two things: first, Y’s involvement in the offences reflected “impulsivity, risk-taking tendencies, poor consequential thinking, and susceptibility to negative peer influence”; and second, Y’s pattern of offending reveals “entrenched anti-social attitudes and failure to [internalise] the severity of his offences.” Both observations are, in my view, serious but entirely fair characterisations.

(a) The susceptibility to negative peer influence can be clearly seen in the fact that every proceeded charge—in fact, the overwhelming majority of all the charges—was committed with at least one other person. In particular, Y participated in the vandalism offence because his group of friends were doing so and because he was bored. Similarly, the glue-sniffing offence was committed because Y and his friends were bored. In fact, it can also be seen that Y committed the most recent (and most serious) string of offences largely with a new set of peers (ie, J, K and L). This suggests that the fact Y has removed himself from one peer group does not break the pattern; Y simply reoffended with different peers.

(b) Next, Y’s impulsive tendencies can be seen from the fact that Y, on a number of occasions, formed a spontaneous intention to commit the offences concerned, with no apparent pause for reflection (for example, spotting a personal mobility device (“PMD”) at a bicycle bay and forming an intention to steal it; agreeing—unhesitatingly, it seems—to a suggestion to spray paint pillars; and deciding and acting on the spot to procure glue to sniff. Y’s risk-taking tendencies can also be seen from the fact that Y did not show any signs of worry or fear at being detected. For example, when he stole the PMD, he spray-painted the PMD and then locked it using his own bicycle lock. When he committed shop theft, he did so despite the presence of CCTVs, and he hid the stolen items in his trousers. Even in his most recent series of offences, he and his accomplices rode the stolen vehicles around the estate before abandoning them, which suggests that he had no concern about being identified.

(c) Finally, it is self-evident, from the fact Y has committed so many offences, that Y has demonstrated poor consequential thinking. This is in particular reinforced, in my view, by the fact that Y has repeatedly reoffended between the time he was released on bail and the time he pleaded guilty, and then between the time he pleaded guilty and the time for the hearing of the dispositional orders. Indeed, Y has himself admitted to the PO that he failed to consider the consequences of his actions.

The second point is that Y’s pattern of repeated and escalating offending shows a clear failure to appreciate the severity of his conduct:

(a) Based on the Statement of Facts, Y was arrested no later than 20 August 2025. By that time, he had committed his 10th offence.

(b) He committed a further 2 offences before he was first charged in Court and released on Court bail on 3 November 2025. It was a condition of bail that Y does not commit any further offences.

(c) Thereafter, he committed a further 2 offences in December 2025 and was arrested on the same day. Court bail, however, was not revoked.

(d) In January 2026, Y was assigned counsel from the Public Defender’s Office, and initially given a hearing on 12 February 2026 to plead guilty. This was adjourned by consent at the request of the defence made 3 days before that hearing, on the grounds that the defence wished to go through the draft statement of facts with Y and to draft a mitigation plea. The plead guilty mention was therefore refixed to 12 March 2026. During that time, Y committed a further 3—possibly 4—offences.

(e) In respect of the first 14 charges (ie, those committed up to December 2025), Y pleaded guilty to the proceeded charges and agreed for the remainder to be taken into consideration. Bail was extended pending the preparation of the PSR. However, between March and April 2026, Y committed another 3 or 4 offences. Y was arrested and his bail was revoked.

The point is that there were several milestones in the proceedings at which the brakes were applied on Y’s conduct, and where Y could have henceforth desisted from his offending conduct. However, Y’s offending in my view not only showed no sign of slowing down, but showed the contrary. In fact, from shop theft and theft of cash cards from motorcycles, Y progressed to stealing the motor vehicles themselves.

The second area concerns Y’s supervision and compliance risk.

In this regard, I note that Y has multiple episodes of staying away from home, and there have been multiple instances of unsuccessful attempts at parental supervision. The ineffectiveness of parental supervision is not due merely to a lack of time; it appears that Y has been conducting himself to undermine his parents’ supervisory efforts. For example, Y’s mother tried to make Y activate his live location on his mobile phone, but Y would in response switch off his mobile phone or live location and make himself uncontactable. When Y’s mother tried to prevent Y sneaking out at night by locking the house gate, Y was found attempting to pick the lock. Y’s father had also imposed an 8pm curfew, with which Y did not comply. Y’s father’s attempt to discipline Y—which was reportedly mainly “verbal scolding including vulgarities”—was met with vulgarities. This leaves me with the distinct impression that Y’s father’s disciplinary methods have in fact turned out to be counterproductive.

Similarly, Y’s record in school has been anything but satisfactory. In 2026, Y was recorded to have attended only 3 out of 45 school days, with 3 instances of latecoming and 28 days of absence. This not only shows that Y has large amounts of unstructured time, but also suggests that Y is not amenable to discipline from his school.

The third and related area concerns Y’s conduct during remand.

During remand, Y committed infringements on 2 occasions. On 15 April 2026—less than a week after his bail was revoked—Y was caught making unnecessary sounds and actions after bedtime, annoying residents on purpose, shouting across the street, engaging in rough play and inappropriate body contact. On 4 June 2026, he crossed boundary lines despite reminders from staff. For each set of infringements, Y’s privileges were forfeited for 3 days. All this indicates that, even within a structured institutional setting, Y’s compliance remains a challenge. There is no reason for me to think that Y will be any more cooperative in a community setting.

The fourth area of concern is the fact that the PO assessed Y to have no protective factors.

To be fair, there are three points which appear in the PSR and which can potentially move the needle in favour of a probation order. I will address them in turn.

The first point is Y’s apparent remorse. The PO reported that Y expressed remorse for his actions and admitted that he failed to consider the consequences of his actions. The Investigating Officer (“IO”) had, in his e-mail correspondence with the PO on 31 March 2026, reported that Y was remorseful, cooperative and forthcoming during police investigations. It is not entirely clear if the IO was aware of Y’s fresh offences when he corresponded with the PO in March 2026. However, the fact that Y continued offending until April 2026, when he was arrested, shows that Y’s remorse was—to take it most charitably—shallow or short-lived. The fact that Y can appreciate his own poor consequential thinking hardly moves the needle in favour of probation.

The second point is Y’s diagnosis of ADHD and substance use disorder. These diagnoses might provide some clinical context for Y’s impulsivity or poor self-regulation, and perhaps at its highest raises a question as to whether it is better to rehabilitate Y in the community than to place Y in a closed, structured environment. There is no serious suggestion that Y’s ADHD will not receive due attention in a JRC; this is a valid diagnosis for a recognised medical condition and Y can and will be given due intervention for this condition. Neither is there any reasoned suggestion that a closed, structured environment would be counterproductive—or even less productive than treatment while in the community—for the treatment of Y’s conditions. For this reason, I do not think that the presence of ADHD itself clearly favours one dispositional modality over another.

The third point concerns the willingness of Y and his family to be engaged and to commit to Y’s good behaviour. Y had expressed his hope to be placed on home/hostel probation to remain close to his family and continue school, and indicated his intention to remain meaningfully engaged through regular school attendance, to accept supervision from his parents and the PO, to reside in a hostel if necessary, to attend psychiatric sessions at IMH, to improve his school attendance, and to be electronically monitored if necessary. Y’s family also expressed a willingness to cooperate with the PO, to attend parenting programmes, to inform the PO if Y misbehaved, to monitor Y’s activity more closely, and to sign a probation bond. This is indeed a sine qua non for the court to order probation. However, this can hardly overcome Y’s evident lack of receptiveness to guidance in the past (I will explain more on this below), and more importantly it is unable to satisfactorily overcome the issue of Y’s recalcitrance, predisposition to anti-social behaviour, susceptibility to negative peer influence and high compliance/supervision risk.

The defence challenge to the PSR

The Defence questioned the PO in court on 4 risk factors which the PO highlighted in the PSR:

(a) First, that the parents had limited follow-through in securing timely intervention, despite being aware of Y’s substance use (suggesting lack of insight, and which may have reduced opportunities for early intervention and contributed to the persistence of Y’s experimentation across multiple substances)

(b) Second, Y’s parents’ working commitments and strained marital relationship may have limited their ability to supervise Imraan effectively, leaving his misbehaviours unaddressed, emboldening his engagement in unrestrained lifestyle and continued offending behaviours.

(c) Third, Y’s exposure to spousal violence and neglect within the home may have affected the stability of his caregiving environment and contributed to his reliance on peers for companionship, support, and direction

(d) Fourth, Y’s rejection of intervention of the Enhanced Step-Up Programme (“ESUP”) indicated his lack of insight into misbehaviour and lack of willingness to make positive changes.

It seems that counsel’s intention is to sufficiently upset the premises on which the PO’s recommendation against probation was founded.

Briefly, while some points raised have some merit to them, I do not consider that the needle has moved in favour of probation enough to swing the conclusion the other way.

On the first point, counsel asserted that the parents only came to know of Y’s substance use in September 2025, and had referred Y to IMH by February 2026—in other words, this was a 5-month gap between knowledge and action. This contrasted with the PO’s assertion that the parents had found out about Y’s substance use by 2024 (which would have implied a gap of anywhere between 13 and 25 months between knowledge and action).

A close examination of the PSR fully corroborates neither position. In fairness to the defence, there is nothing in the details recorded by the PO that supports a finding that Y’s parents had found out about Y’s substance use as early as 2024. In every substance use case identified—etomidate, butane gas, tobacco, vaping, and glue—the parents were reportedly aware (or at least suspicious) only in 2025, not 2024. The PO, at the hearing, did not explain in any detail why she asserted that Y’s parents knew about the substance use since 2024. There is nothing that supports or contradicts the month in which the defence asserts Y’s parents found out about Y’s substance use. I am prepared to give the defence the benefit of the doubt.

Nonetheless, in my judgment, 5 months, even if not as long a delay as 13 to 25 months, is nonetheless substantial enough that it cannot be fairly described as “timely”. This is especially so considering that this is not the first time Y has veered off the straight and narrow path, and in the absence of good reasons, his parents could and should have made the referral earlier. The relevance of this is that I am not fully satisfied that Y’s parents will have the mettle to take the timely and difficult decisions that may arise in the course of Y’s rehabilitation, if Y were to be placed on probation.

I turn to the second point. The thrust of counsel’s argument was presumably that Y’s family now has considerably more bandwidth to supervise Y. In this regard, counsel raised two sub-points. First, on working commitments, since the preparation of the PSR, Y’s father had left his full-time job for a part-time job, Y’s mother had since resigned from her part-time job, and Y’s sister had left her ad hoc employment and had expressed willingness to assist in supervising Y. Second, on the strained marital relationship, counsel asserted that this was also a historical matter with no current relevance. I was not fully persuaded by either point.

On the issue of working commitments, the PO’s concern was not merely about the quantum of time available for supervision, but about the quality and effectiveness of supervision. As the PSR makes clear, Y actively circumvented (or attempted to circumvent) the multiple attempts Y’s parents made to supervise him. The problem, therefore, is not one that more parental time alone can solve. As for Y’s sister, the PSR records that she has not previously been involved in Y’s discipline, and there is no basis to assess how effective her supervision would be. The PO noted that any supervision plan involving Y’s parents and sister has not been tried and tested, and was unable to offer a view as to how effective it might be in practice.

I will address the second sub-point on marital strain along with counsel’s third point on marital violence. Counsel challenged the relevance of the spousal violence, pointing out that it occurred some 7 years ago (when Y was about 7 years old), and that there was no family violence at the time of the offending.

On the marital strain, while the PSR does not explicitly document ongoing marital strain at the time of the report, the PO’s inquiries reveal a picture of marital strain more recently than counsel urges. Apart from an application for a protection order and divorce in 2018 (which, in fairness, were ultimately withdrawn), as recently as September 2023, Y’s father reportedly scolded Y after an argument with Y’s mother, such that Y was forced to stay overnight at his maternal grandmother’s residence despite his national examinations being imminent. Y’s father had reportedly used vulgarities on his children, and on Y’s mother. This also led to Y’s mother making a referral to the National Anti-Violence and Sexual Harassment Hotline on the basis of neglect. The marriage may not be tearing at the seams at the present, but there is no reason to think that it is an oasis of positive influences for Y either.

As for spousal violence, I accept that the evidence in the PSR is largely historical, and that Y’s offences are not violent in nature. However, I do not think this materially affects my assessment. First, the PO’s point was not that the spousal violence was a direct or proximate cause of Y’s offending — indeed, the PO herself acknowledged during questioning that it was “not a definitive cause, but a contribution that may have caused instability”. The relevance of early exposure to family violence lies not in its contemporaneity with the offending, but in its potential to have disrupted Y’s secure attachment and caregiving environment during his formative years, normalised rule-breaking, and contributed to Y’s reliance on peers for companionship, support and direction—a well-documented pathway to youth delinquency. Second, the risk factor in the PSR is not confined to spousal violence; it also encompasses neglect within the home, the most recent documented instance of which was in September 2023 — just 2 months after the closure of the NAVH referral, and 2 months before Y’s first offence in November 2023. These instances of neglect may also have contributed to deficits in supervision, which could have enabled Y to take the wrong path. On the whole, I am satisfied that this risk factor has a sufficient evidential basis.

I turn to the final point. Counsel challenged the PO as to whether Y’s diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (“ADHD”) was considered as a possible reason for the rejection of the ESUP.

While it does not appear that the PO considered this, I do not think this affects my assessment of the facts in any material way. First, Y’s ADHD diagnosis was only made in April 2026. This post-dated the time when Y rejected the ESUP, which was in September 2024, by more than 18 months. It is unclear if Y was suffering from ADHD at the time he rejected the ESUP. Second, and more importantly, even if Y had ADHD at the material time, there is a difference between saying that Y demonstrated poor engagement during the ESUP, and saying that Y rejected participation in the ESUP outright. The former is quite explicable on the basis that the participant is suffering from ADHD, but the latter—which is the case here—is not. In the absence of a psychiatric report suggesting that ADHD would lead Y to reject an intervention outright, I do not consider the ADHD to be a plausible cause for the rejection of intervention.

At this point, the picture that emerges is that, in fairness to the defence, some of the PO’s claims—in their strongest version—are slightly overstated. Specifically, Y’s parents had referred Y for substance abuse interventions about 5 months after first finding out about it, and the family violence and marital strain may have been more a thing of the past than of a thing in the present (such that their causal nexus to Y’s present offending is weaker or at least less direct). Y’s parents also have more time to supervise Y than suggested. However, for the reasons explained above, these move the needle on Y’s risk assessment in limited ways and, at any rate, not enough to overcome the issues which I have identified in the 4 areas of observations discussed earlier.

The request to reassess Y’s suitability for probation

In the light of the increased availability of Y’s parents and sister to supervise Y, counsel suggested that the PO consider reassessing, in the light of this new information, if probation could be recommended, or if the duration of Y’s placement in the JRC could be reduced so that Y could reintegrate with society and be treated for his ADHD.

I was not persuaded to take this course of action.

First, taking this course of action would undermine the probation assessment process. The PO’s assessment is based on circumstances as they exist (and have existed). Its value lies in—among other things—its contemporaneity. If families were permitted to respond at the eleventh hour to what they consider to be an unfavourable report by reconfiguring their circumstances—such as parents reducing working commitments and siblings volunteering to assist—and then have the PO to reassess suitability on that revised basis, this would open the door to the probation assessment being an iterative process. However, this would not only be a disproportionate use of resources, but would also (more importantly) threaten the reliability of any change in the PO’s assessment in favour of probation. Any reported changes in the family’s circumstances would, in my view, be inherently less reliable as indicators of genuine and lasting protective/supervisory capacity. In this case, I note that the changes in circumstances came in fact not only after Y had pleaded guilty to the first set of offences, but in fact after his arrest for the second set of offences.

Second, I do not consider it material that Y’s sister reportedly expressed willingness to contribute effort to look after Y. To give context, Y has 2 older sisters, aged 21 and 24, respectively. The sister in issue here is the younger of the two. She is currently working 12-hour shifts on an ad hoc basis. She is reported by Y and his parents to have a close relationship with Y, but she has not been involved in Y’s discipline. It is unclear how an adjournment for a supplementary PSR can produce reliable observations of Y’s sister’s capacity to effectively supervise and guide Y, where she has never been involved in Y’s discipline previously.

Third, and most importantly, the increased amount of time that Y’s parents have made available will, in all likelihood, be of limited impact to the PO’s recommendation. Parental availability was hardly a determinative factor in the PO’s assessment. As I explained above, even if Y’s parents and sister have more time to spend with Y, it does not mean that Y will receive the quality of supervision he needs. For this reason, it is also difficult to conclude that increased parental supervision will adequately address the problem of Y’s risk profile when he is in the community.

For these reasons, I declined to adjourn the hearing for the preparation of a supplementary PSR.

Conclusion

As a concluding observation, I can understand the desire of Y’s family to see Y placed on probation. However, Y’s best interests are not served by allowing probation in circumstances where the conditions that favour successful probation do not exist. Probation should not be merely viewed as the more lenient option that should be preferred wherever it can be made to fit. It is a rehabilitative option that is used in circumstances where Y has by his conduct demonstrated capacity for correction and where there is a genuine and stable foundation for community-based supervision. Where this foundation is absent, placing Y on probation would paradoxically set him up to fail by exposing him to the risk of further offending when he is not ready to overcome it. It would defer the structured intervention that his risk profile indicates that he needs, and Y might reoffend and find himself in court under more severe conditions.

In the present case, I was satisfied, on the material before me, that probation was clearly not the most ideal rehabilitative option for Y. As I have just explained, I did not see the merit in adjourning the hearing for the PO to reconsider the matter.

I was satisfied that Y’s risk profile justified the 24-month placement in a JRC that was recommended to me.

To be clear, I do not consider that the duration of Y’s placement should be reduced for, as counsel suggested, Y to reintegrate with society or be treated for ADHD. I have already stated above that there is no serious suggestion that Y’s ADHD would go untreated in JRC. As for reintegration with society (or, for that matter, family), there is currently no reliable basis for me to think that the availability of family support means that I should take Y on faith and reduce the duration of Y’s placement in the JRC. If Y makes good progress, Y may be eligible for home leave or the day release scheme. And, if Y makes exceptional progress, it is open to the head of the JRC to apply to shorten the duration of the order, or to discharge it entirely.

In the premises, I ordered that Y be placed in the Singapore Boys’ Home, being a JRC, for 24 months.

Y’s mother has appealed my decision.