23-year-old alleged killer may have ADHD
By Ong Dai Lin, TODAY | Posted: 12 November 2009 0733 hrs

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SINGAPORE: He had been "active" since he was a year old, and even needed to be tied with a rope to be kept in one place.

In primary school, his teachers complained that he could not sit still for more than five minutes. That was the picture Pathip Selvan Sugumaran's mother painted of her son as a boy.

Pathip, 23, is on trial for stabbing his girlfriend Jeevitha Panippan, 18, to death on July 7 last year.

According to psychiatrist Tommy Tan in the High Court on Wednesday, his mother also described him as a hot-tempered person who could not concentrate on tasks he was not interested in. All these are symptoms of Pathip's attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD), said Dr Tan.

The accused also has an attention span of 35 minutes, compared to that of about an hour for a normal person. Dr Tan also noted Pathip's request for frequent toilet breaks when recording his police statements as another indication of his short attention span.

When Justice Kan Ting Chiu said taking toilet breaks had nothing to do with ADHD, Dr Tan said: "It's quite a common thing for him to request to go to the toilet because he is losing attention."

This, however, met with disagreement from the prosecution's expert witness psychiatrist Dr Joshua Kua. Dr Kua's assessment was that Pathip was "alert and attentive" during their interviews and did not exhibit any behavioural dyscontrol. He also denied any history of psychiatric illness.

Dr Kua also said that while the discovery of Ms Jeevitha's infidelity had given Pathip stress, the accused was able to cope with it. It did not affect his functioning.

On Wednesday, a relaxed looking Pathip smiled occasionally at his family and friends in the public gallery. He also toyed with a pen from time to time. At one point in the hearing, he requested for a toilet break.

The trial continues.


- TODAY/so