Cold Blooded Murders (26 page)

At once Major James made arrangements to get
over to Pulau Senang. He arrived at about a 3:45
pm
. The island was aflame as he approached. The police were
already there and had rounded up the rioters. James was told that Button and
two others were dead, and 75 per cent of the buildings were destroyed. Total
damage was estimated, in financial terms, at about half a million dollars.

At the trial, the Public Prosecutor, Mr
Francis Seow, said that Dutton had died a terrible death, ‘having blundered by
under-estimating the size of the uprising’. Mr Seow reckoned that ‘quite a
sizeable section’ of the 316 detainees on the island that day were involved in
the rioting. He said that trouble had begun when 13 carpenters were sent back
to Changi Jail on 9th July for refusing to work on the 400-foot jetty on a
Saturday afternoon. Major James later told Dutton that he had been ill-advised
to do this.

But even before Dutton had sent the
carpenters back, some of the detainees were already plotting to kill him.
Informers reported this to Dutton. On 10 July, some of the leaders of the riot
drew up a death-list of six prison officers. This list was later amended to
include known, or suspected, informers. Men were allocated their respective
responsibilities in the uprising. Dutton heard about this the same day. He
refused to treat the threat seriously. One of the detainees, the informers
said, boasted that the riot would shake the whole of Malaysia (of which
Singapore was then part). Dutton was given the latest intelligence reports and
also informed about the plot to kill him. Dutton brushed them aside: he
preferred to believe that the majority of the detainees would stand by him if
there was trouble.

James did not share his optimism. To start
with, the Director of Prisons doubted whether any long-time secret society
gangster could ever be rehabilitated. He had also opposed the appointment of
ex-Pulau Senang detainees as settlement attendants. In his opinion, to employ
ex-prisoners in a position of authority in a prison system was wrong. It was
quite possible that a detainee could find that he was being supervised by a
settlement attendant who was, or had been, a member of a rival secret society.
Dutton on the other hand sincerely believed that a man’s salvation came through
hard work. He was anxious to retain the services of freed detainees on Pulau
Senang who had showed peculiar talents for building, laying pipes, and so on.
Dutton had argued that detainees set free would be grateful to be given a
‘government job’ on the island, and would never again turn to a secret society.
James, a most experienced prison officer, disagreed. He later told the Court
that he thought that ‘government circles’ agreed with him, but he added,
‘certain people’ in the end decided that ex-detainees could be employed as
settlement attendants. He felt it to be a mistake.

At the time of the riot, there was a staff
of 45 on the island. There were no firearms, no tear gas. There were wicker-shields
and batons. In Court, at the trial, James gave his opinion that had Dutton been
surrounded by regular prison staff, ‘we might have seen some of the rioters
injured. I saw none.’ He added: “If you want my opinion I should say that the
staff might well have given a better account of themselves.”

Major James told the Court that it was his
decision that there should be no firearms on the island. “We were always
out-numbered: if we had firearms there was always a real danger of these arms
being taken from us, falling into the hands of the detainees.” The whole
question had been discussed at great length with the police. There were no
firearms in British prisons. It would have been psychologically wrong for
prison staff to walk about Pulau Senang with firearms. “It was our intention to
have firearms on the neighbouring island of Pulau Pawai where we were building
an armoury. In the event of trouble the orders were to evacuate to this island.
The armoury had not been completed by 12 July.” James was asked whether it
wouldn’t have been a good idea to have smuggled a Sten-gun into Pulau Senang
and hidden it somewhere where Dutton could have had ready access to it. James
opposed the idea.

“Would a Sten-gun in that radio room at 1:00
pm
on the 12th of July have saved
the situation?” asked Mr C.H. Koh, one of the counsel for the defence.

Major James said, “That is debatable.”

Because of what James considered to be
Dutton’s misplaced trust in the detainees, he decided to go over to Pulau
Senang on 11 July (the day before the uprising) to tell Dutton to take
seriously the reports of the plot to kill him, and to take precautions. That
was when he told Dutton that he had been ill-advised to send the carpenters
back to Changi. James told Dutton that he did not think the work on the jetty
was urgent enough to insist upon work on Saturday afternoons. James told Dutton
that he would probably send them back again to Pulau Senang within a reasonably
short space of time.

The jetty was 400 feet long, and, as Major
James explained during the trial, it was necessary to work on it at various odd
hours because there is a straits between Pulau Senang and the neighbouring
island of Pulau Pawai. There is an extremely strong tide between the two
islands, and in building the jetty, Dutton was dependent entirely on the state
of the tide. With improvised equipment, the men could only work at low tide. If
the tide was low at night, they would work at night. It was not work that could
be done at regular working hours. Work depended entirely on tide. Besides,
Dutton believed in work.

James felt that Pulau Senang had reached the
stage when the detainees had the best amenities that he had ever seen in any
prison anywhere, and in 21 years of service, he had been to many prisons in
various parts of the world. They had cinema, educational facilities,
recreational facilities, good accommodation, laundry, workshops and canteen.
James felt that the need for long working hours was over. The original
enthusiasm for building could not be the same: the men could no longer see any
reason for long working hours.

Dutton thought otherwise. Pulau Senang was
not built to be enjoyed. That was not the purpose of the open-prison
settlement. Dutton believed fervently that the men’s salvation was hard work.

A defence counsel got Major James to admit
that he had ordered Dutton to reduce the working hours. The detainees knew this
(there were few secrets on the island). The defence counsel asked James whether
Dutton was setting a proper example to those he was trying to teach to respect
law and order when Dutton himself disregarded orders. James denied the
suggestion that Dutton flagrantly disobeyed orders. He had given Dutton
considerable discretion. Dutton was the man on the spot. Pulau Senang was a
place where time and tide waited for no man. Things had to be done. Chickens
had to be fed, emergency work done. But the type of man on Pulau Senang was a
man not liking work. Many people were in prison because they were lazy. Some
joined secret societies because they were lazy. James said that no detainee had
ever protested or complained to him about working hours, and every prisoner
knew he had the right to approach the Director of Prisons with serious
complaints.

At 11:30
am
on 12 July, the detainees stopped for lunch. Shortly after the start-work gong
struck at 12:40
pm
, they were
mustered for gardening and issued with
cangkuls
and
parangs
. On an arranged signal, the riot began. Some of the rioters
attacked the warders. Others made for the radio room where Dutton and his chief
officer, J.W. Tailford, had stationed themselves. By now, the warning siren was
blaring. By the time the riot squad arrived, inside the hour, Dutton and two
others were dead and a third fatally injured. The settlement was in ruins. The
final drama had come when the rioters beseiged the administrative block, the
settlement’s nerve centre. Outnumbered, the prison staff were overwhelmed. Soon
buildings were ablaze. Dutton, seriously injured, alone and helpless, was
cornered in his office. Rioters tore a hole in the roof and poured petrol on
him and tossed in fire to set him alight. Dutton rushed outside, his clothing
in flames, and four rioters with axes and
cangkuls
finished him off. A rioter’s shirt, stained with Dutton’s blood,
was set up on the mast, and as the body of Dutton burned, the rioters played
music on a guitar and sang and danced.

None of the detainees was killed during the
riot. In fact, only six suffered superficial head injuries. They received
attention at the prison hospital. All six had previous records of misconduct on
the island.

During the trial, Major James disagreed with
the defence’s contention that violence on the island had been an outburst of
human intolerance. He denied Dutton was a slave driver. He was one of the
kindest men James had ever met. He was a natural leader. If there was any good
in a man, Dutton would bring it out. He was an extremely humane person. He
often called upon James to help men released from Pulau Senang. If a detainee
had trouble at home, Dutton would seek James’ help in sorting it out. Defence
counsel asked James whether it was not a fact that the outburst had been a
demonstration of personal hatred of Dutton.

James denied this. He said: “Dutton had to
be, had the misfortune to be, the living embodiment of a system affecting their
lives on Pulau Senang. He represented the authority of the Singapore
Government, and, in my opinion, that holocaust was directly directed against
the Singapore Government and the system that detained them.” Dutton represented
a system, a better way of life to which these men, ‘the scum of Singapore’,
were antagonistic. “They couldn’t stand a system which took them out of their
unpleasant habits.”

Major James’ explanation of the savage riot
was that the rioters knew that prison accommodation in the State of Singapore
was at an absolute premium. They knew that a prison with accommodation for
2,000 prisoners was being pulled down (Outram Road Prison). They knew that one
man, and one man alone, in the State Prison Service could build Pulau Senang.
They thought that if this man, Daniel Dutton, was done away with, and the place
destroyed, the Singapore Government would find it extremely difficult to
contain them. They might have to release them.

No proof was ever forthcoming that this was
in fact the motive behind the revolt, but during the trial, a former secret
society leader and a detainee, both prosecution witnesses, revealed that a
meeting of seven secret society leaders on 6 July decided that Dutton must be
liquidated and Pulau Senang razed to the ground.

Among those at the meeting of seven was Tan
Kheng Ann. Dutton spent long hours in the evening with him. Dutton believed Tan
had reformed. An informer warned Dutton against Tan, but Dutton laughed. He
rather liked Tan. In the end Tan was one of the men who killed him.

When the riot squad arrived, they
met with no resistance. The rioters threw aside their weapons and obeyed
orders. They were taken away to Changi Prison. Six weeks later, on 26 August
1963, 71 detainees stood before the Fourth Magistrate, Khoo Hin Hiong, each
charged with four counts of murder, one of attempted murder, and one of
mischief by causing fire. Forty-seven photographs of damaged buildings and
bodies of the murdered officers were produced. One picture showed a guitar
among a pile of tyres. “Evidence will show,” said the Public Prosecutor, “that
these people were singing and celebrating the holocaust.” Lee Meow Cheng, a
settlement attendant, told the Court that the rioters had held a victory
celebration. “Some of them changed into new clothes for the celebration. They
strutted about like conquerors of Pulau Senang,” said Lee.

Low Ah Kow, a settlement assistant, gave the
Court a detailed account of what happened. He said that at 12:15 pm that day,
he and other officers fell in outside the guard room and were informed by
Tailford, the chief officer, that trouble was expected. They were instructed
that when the siren sounded, they were to fall in again outside the guard room.
Tailford then dismissed them. Low went off to the mess room, where he was
detailed to look after Halls, A, B, C and D. Another settlement officer was
told to look after Halls E, F, G and H. Low heard the work-gong sound at 12:50
pm and then shortly after, while standing outside Hall A, he heard the three
short blasts of the alarm siren. He saw a large group of detainees approaching
him: they were armed with cangkuls, parangs, pipes and other weapons. They were
led by the gang leader, Tan Kheng Ann, alias Robert. His prison number was 860/60.
He had a parang in his hand. They charged towards the mess room, but made no
attempt to assault him.

A group of rioters had surrounded Choo Ah
Kim, another settlement assistant. He looked as though he was suffering from
shock. Then Low saw an unarmed group of detainees rush into the armed mob to
rescue Choo and carry him into the administrative block. Low himself went with
them as far as the prison hospital to get some medicine. While he was inside
the hospital, he saw, across the road, three armed rioters smash the petrol
pump lock and draw some of the fuel, then run off towards the store. While
still in the hospital grounds he heard a voice yell: “Bobby! Cut the radio
wire!” Later, he saw Bobby (whom he identified as Lim Tee Kang) running towards
the radio wire and cut it with an axe.