Two former teachers at a special school helped Emmanuel Munisamy avoid a jail term of five years and three months, and 24 strokes of the cane, on Monday.

One read about his case from a newspaper report in February and through her actions, the High Court realised that the district court was unaware that Emmanuel had an extremely low intellectual capability.

The other teacher came forward and promised to supervise the 20-year-old after he is released from the Reformative Training Centre. This could be between 18 months and three years.

Mrs Vasantha Povil first learnt from the newspaper that Emmanuel was sentenced to five years and three months jail for robbery and hitting a policeman.

Puzzled why there was no mention that he was mentally retarded, the 54-year-old teacher, now working at the Tanglin School, called lawyer T.U Naidu, who serves on the executive committee of The Association for Persons with Special Needs.

In Emmanuel's appeal against the sentence, the High Court found out that the district judge was not told of his low IQ of 66, which a psychologist described as being in the "very low range of mental ability".

Justice V.K. Rajah then ordered further psychological evaluation and Emmanuel was deemed suitable for reformative training. But the judge expressed concern that Emmanuel would revert to crime upon his release.

This time, another former teacher, Madam Linda Pereira, came to his rescue. She volunteered to provide close supervision to Emmanuel together with her husband, computer solutions manager Prebhash Chandra.

She convinced the court that she would not have a problem with Emmanuel as she had known him since 1997, when he was a student at Chao Yang Special School, now known as Chaoyang School.

He was also the ring bearer at her wedding in 1999.

In a letter to the court, she said that she lost touch with Emmanuel after he graduated from the school in 2000. Madam Pereira, 44, who is now the vice-principal of the Rainbow Centre at Margaret's Drive, said she visited him in Changi prison in May this year.

She wrote: "Although he has tattoos and is a lot older, I could see the 'child' in him.

"I believe that he may not have the capacity to understand his actions or their consequences."

But Deputy public prosecutor Christina Koh insisted that Emmanuel was "no drooling idiot" and had played an active role in the offences, which he committed while serving a two-year stay at the Gracehaven juvenile home for theft.

"He should not be allowed to use his low IQ as a wild card to whisk away from a prison sentence."

Justice Rajah said that the need for reformation outweighs retribution in this case and called on lawyers to fully fulfil their obligations to their clients and not present a three-paragraph argument for a lenient sentence as Emmanuel's lawyer had done.