Spottiswoode condo killer litter: Man jailed 5.5 years after killing elderly man with bottle
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Andrew Gosling, 49, threw a wine bottle from the seventh floor of the Spottiswoode 18 condominium. It struck 73-year-old Nasiari Sunee who died in hospital.
- Andrew Gosling, 49, was drunk when he threw a wine bottle from the seventh-floor lift landing of Spottiswoode 18 condo in 2019
- The Australian was upset and angry at terrorist acts committed by Islamic fundamentalist groups in Bali and Melbourne
- The bottle struck Nasiari Sunee, 73, on the head and killed him
- Nasiari's wife, Madam Manisah, was also injured
- Gosling has filed an appeal against the sentence
BY
Published April 8, 2022
Updated April 8, 2022
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SINGAPORE — A 49-year-old man was jailed for five-and-a-half years on Friday (April 8) for hurling a wine bottle from a condominium seventh-floor lift landing, which struck a grandfather on the head and killed him.
Andrew Gosling had hostile thoughts about the Muslim community while drunk and wanted to startle a family who was gathered at the barbecue pits near the fifth-floor swimming pool for a housewarming event in 2019, the court heard.
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The bottle hit 73-year-old Nasiari Sunee, and then ricocheted and hit his 69-year-old wife on the shoulder. He died in hospital the next day from his injuries, while his spouse was seriously injured.
Gosling, an Australian, pleaded guilty in February to one charge of causing Nasiari’s death by a rash act and causing grievous hurt to his wife, Madam Manisah Sitri, also by a rash act.
His team of lawyers had asked for one to two years' jail and has filed an appeal against the sentence.
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After throwing the bottle and shouting crude and religiously charged vulgarities, Gosling fled back to his unit, court documents said.
It took 10 days for him to confess to the police, after they questioned him thrice and took statements from other condo residents.
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He has been remanded since surrendering to the authorities.
Gosling's charges were reduced from
more serious ones of causing grievous hurt to Nasiari with an instrument likely to cause death, as well voluntarily causing hurt to Mdm Manisah in a religiously aggravated act.
Psychiatrists found that he was prone to obsessive negative thoughts when intoxicated, which did not represent his true feelings and intentions.
OFFENCES WERE RELIGIOUSLY AGGRAVATED
In his sentencing remarks on Friday, Principal District Judge Victor Yeo said that Gosling had “demonstrated clear heedlessness” and took a “conscious and deliberate risk” that the bottle would strike more or one persons, resulting in death or serious injury.
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The judge agreed with the prosecution that the offences were "religiously aggravated" as Gosling had demonstrated religious hostility towards Muslims.
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“Such offences could seriously undermine Singapore’s racial and religious harmony, and must not be tolerated and must be firmly dealt with. Preserving and building inter-religious harmony in Singapore is sacrosanct and this could have a wider impact of causing unease among the broader Muslim community.
"Hence, a deterrent sentence is necessary to dispel the unease and disquiet that could emanate from the offences,” District Judge Yeo added.
Gosling’s actions were also akin to killer litter and such offences “must be dealt with seriously” given that a vast majority of Singapore’s population resides in high-rise flats, the judge told the court.
However, the judge accepted Gosling's lawyers’ submissions that he was genuinely remorseful for his offences, despite him only surrendering to the authorities days later. He has voluntarily paid compensation to the family to offset some of their expenses.
In terms of the individual sentences, District Judge Yeo chose to run them consecutively instead of concurrently because his offences “involved a separate and distinct invasion of legally protected interests”.
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The judge also took into account the “high degree of rashness” involved.
He sentenced Gosling to four years’ jail for causing Nasiari’s death and 18 months’ jail for seriously injuring Mdm Manisah. The overall sentence was backdated to Aug 28, 2019 when he surrendered to the police.
After the court hearing, Mdm Manisah told reporters in Malay that she was thankful her four children were with her and that the family had no comments on the sentence. "It's fate," she added.
Her son, Mr Nas Muhammad Nasta'in Nasiari, 41, said that they just wanted closure and to move on from this episode.
When asked if they have forgiven Gosling, Mr Nasta'in's brother, who did not want to be named, responded: "It’s hard to forgive. Only time will heal this. We can’t forgive him now, it's very difficult."
WHAT HAPPENED
The court previously heard that Gosling, who drank two large bottles and a can of beer before hurling the wine bottle, had noticed the group at the barbecue pits on the evening of Aug 18, 2019.
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He had been in Singapore for a month to find employment in the information technology sector, having lived abroad in places such as Malaysia and Turkey previously.
Gosling ascertained that the group was from the Malay-Muslim community since some of the women were wearing headscarves.
During investigations, he admitted that upon seeing the group, it crossed his mind to use a weapon like a gun to shoot them. He then dismissed the thought because he thought it was a heinous act.
At around 8pm, he left his unit to dispose of rubbish via the common rubbish chute at the lift lobby, which overlooked the barbecue area.
Upon finding an empty wine bottle in the rubbish chute, he hurled it towards the group. Prosecutors told the court that there was a distance of about 18m between him and the group at the time.
Gosling then ran back to his unit while shouting religiously charged vulgarities.
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He confessed to throwing the bottle for two reasons: As an act of mischief because he wanted to startle the group when the bottle shattered on the ground, and due to his anger at terrorist acts committed by Islamic fundamentalist groups in Bali, Indonesia and Melbourne, Australia that had claimed the lives of Australians.
Nasiari collapsed from being struck by the bottle, which landed on the ground intact. He was taken to Singapore General Hospital in an ambulance, arriving in a completely unresponsive state.
A brain scan showed extensive bleeding in his brain, multiple skull fractures and extensive haemorrhaging. He died the morning after the incident when his family declined to resuscitate him.
Mdm Manisah suffered extensive bruising over her shoulder among other injuries and her arm was in a sling for two months.
WIFE CRIES WHEN ALONE
Nasiari and his wife had been married for 45 years. Mdm Manisah took some time to come to terms with her husband’s death and experienced flashbacks of the incident, prosecutors told the court.
The housewife had been heavily reliant on his salary as a deliveryman. Her four children now give her S$700 a month for household expenses.
She also cooks for her children and their families daily, asking them to collect the food so that she would not be alone at home. She feels Nasiari’s absence keenly during the fasting month of Ramadan that just began on April 3.
Covid-19 restrictions had worsened her loneliness, prosecutors added. Her 17-year-old grandson now stays with her on weeknights to accompany her.
Although she tries to stay strong for her children, she would cry to herself when alone, the court heard.
Gosling was assessed in the Institute of Mental Health, where psychiatrist Christopher Cheok found that his state of intoxication had impaired his judgement to some extent but it was not enough to remove his culpability for the offence, Dr Cheok added.
The psychiatrist’s report, which was issued with the defence's psychiatrist Munidasa Winslow, also stated that Gosling's obsessive negative thoughts while intoxicated were likely a product of his impaired mental state and "not genuinely reflective of an anti-Muslim stance".
“Even if he had committed the alleged offence, it was unlikely to be religiously motivated,” the report stated.
Those convicted of causing death by a rash act under the Penal Code can be jailed for up to five years or fined, or punished with both.
Those who cause grievous hurt by a rash act can be jailed for up to four years or fined up to S$10,000, or both.
