Singaporean in Australia pleads guilty to manslaughter, gets 5-year & 9-month jail sentence for running over man

SINGAPORE: After the backpack of a Singaporean man who was on a visit to Australia with his girlfriend and her family was stolen, he was able to track the thief’s location.  Unfortunately, the incident ended in a road accident that claimed the life of the man who had stolen the backpack and resulted in a jail sentence for the Singaporean.

Lincoln Ng Jing Kai, 29, had planned to propose to his girlfriend during their trip to Perth, a report in CNA said.

The couple and her family went to East Victoria Park for dinner on May 23, 2024. Ng left his backpack, which had some valuable items, including his passport, in the rental car while they had their meal.

A man named Mark John Burnes saw Ng leaving the backpack in the car. He called his partner and told her that he planned to steal it, breaking the vehicle’s rear window in order to do so.

Later, when an AirTag was found in the backpack, Mr Burnes’ partner threw it into another vehicle.

Ng reported the break-in and theft to the police after realising what had happened. His girlfriend's brother activated the AirTag later that night to determine the backpack’s location.

The next morning, upon checking on the AirTag’s location, Ng and his girlfriend’s family saw that it was near a construction site and told the police about it. They went to the site at around 12:30 pm and looked for the backpack.

While they were there, they saw Mr Burnes driving past on an e-bike, and it looked like he had Ng’s backpack with him.

Ng, together with his girlfriend's brother and father, followed Mr Burnes by car for around 10 minutes, with the girlfriend's brother staying on the phone with the police all the while.

The Supreme Court of Western Australia heard one of the people in the car telling Ng to give Mr Burnes’ bike a “tap,” and after Ng hit the bike’s back wheel, Mr Burnes fell off it. He shouted at the car’s occupants, and the report says Ng believed Mr Burnes was approaching the vehicle.

Ng then pushed the accelerator pedal, wanting to get away from Mr Burnes. However, instead of the car being in reverse, as Ng thought, it was actually in drive, and the vehicle surged and hit Mr Burnes, running over him. As Ng drove, Mr Burnes was trapped under the vehicle, and he ended up being dragged around 25 meters.

As he drove, people who were on the street shouted and struck the vehicle’s windows to let Ng know that Mr Burnes had been trapped under the car.

Ng stopped the vehicle and waited for the police to arrive. He was arrested shortly afterwards.

Mr Burnes died of the injuries he sustained during the incident.

While the initial charge against Ng was murder, this was changed to manslaughter in August. The Singaporean pleaded guilty to the amended charge.

When his sentence was read, Judge Terence Palmer said that what Ng did "involved an element of taking the law into your own hands and a degree of vigilantism.”

The judge acknowledged the circumstances of the incident leading to Mr Burnses’ death, including the pressure Ng was under, the panic he must have felt, his guilty plea, remorse, and lack of criminal history. He also accepted the high probability of Ng’s rehabilitation.

Ng was sentenced to five years and nine months in jail on Monday (Nov 2). As he was detained on May 24, 2024, he will be up for parole after three years and nine months. /TISG

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