LOW-IQ ROBBER SPARED JAIL, CANE His former teacher comes forward after friend tells her about The New Paper report
WHEN Mrs Vasantha Povil read a New Paper report on the sentencing of Emmanuel Munisamy, one thing puzzled her.
Why was there no mention that he was intellectually challenged?
So she contacted her former colleague and Emmanuel's former teacher, Ms Linda Pereira.
And Ms Pereira set about a chain of events which eventually saw Emmanuel's sentence being reduced.
Yesterday, High Court judge V K Rajah changed his sentence from five years and three months' jail and 24 strokes of the cane to reformative training. This can be between 18 months and three years.
Emmanuel was charged with robbery and hurting a policeman last year.
TAKEN ABACK
Ms Pereira visited Emmanuel in Changi Prison in May after her friend told her. She was taken aback at what she saw. There were tattoos 'all over his arms'.
Ms Pereira, 44, is now the vice-principal of Rainbow Centre, which runs programmes for intellectually-challenged children.
Emmanuel, now 20, was the ring bearer at her wedding in 1999. He was studying in Chao Yang Special School then and Ms Pereira was one of his teachers.
She lost touch with him after he graduated the same year.
She told The New Paper that Emmanuel had a 'wide smile that could melt anybody's heart'.
She said: 'I was so shocked when I saw him and the tattoos. His smile had changed too. It had a lot of apprehension and fear. But I knew that he is a good boy.'
Ms Pereira contacted lawyer TUNaidu, who, together with S K Kumar, represented Emmanuel for free. Mr Naidu is a volunteer with the Association for Persons with Special Needs (APSN).
In her letter to Mr Naidu dated 7 Aug this year, she said she had known the young man since 1997 when he enrolled at Chao Yang Special School run by the APSN.
Emmanuel had even won a medal at the Special Olympics in the US in 1999.
She added that she and her husband would be Emmanuel's guardians if he was sent for reformative training instead.
Earlier, District Judge See Kee Oon had decided against reformative training because of Emmanuel's previous convictions.
But the district court was not told then that Emmanuel had a low IQ. It was only during the appeal that it was brought up.
Court documents showed that prison psychologist Daniel Koh found that Emmanuel had an IQ of66, which he described as being in the 'extremely low range of intellectual ability'.
The IQ of a normal person ranges from 85 to 115.
In another report, Dr Tan Soo Teng, the prison psychiatrist, noted Emmanuel was 'mildly intellectual deficient and that this mental retardation would have compromised his ability to assess and analyse the meaning of events around him'.
Ms Pereira said that Emmanuel grew up in a family where he was 'pretty much left on his own'. His father died a few years ago and her mother, who is a general worker in a hospital, had to work to support him and his twin brother.
BAD COMPANY
Ms Pereira said: 'I told him that he has to stay away from bad company but he told me that all his friends are in jail too. If he did not listen to them, they would hit him.'
At his appeal yesterday, Deputy Public Prosecutor Christina Koh argued: 'Just because he has a low IQ does not give him a magic card that could whisk him out of jail.'
But Justice V.K. Rajah was more concerned with what happens after the sentence was served.
He commended Ms Pereira for stepping forward despite her other responsibilities.
Ms Pereira worked out a care plan for Emmanuel and detailed through the lawyers how she would help Emmanuel 'to make sure he doesn't stray again' after he is released.
Besides helping him find a job upon his release, she would also get him to join a football club.
Emmanuel's mother did not turn up in court. Ms Pereira said she was unable to contact her. But she added that she had been visiting him in jail.
taken:
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/st...42288,00.html? 
I'll help him so he never strays again 
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