Ding Si Yang v Public Prosecutor and another appeal

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Chan Seng Onn J
• Judgment Date: 16 January 2015
• Neutral Citation: [2015] SGHC 8
• Published date: 19 January 2017
• Date: 16 January 2015
• Year: 2015
• Hearing Date: 17 October 2014,19 September 2014
• Subject Matter: Criminal law,Benchmark sentences,Statutory offences,Prevention of Corruption Act,Sentencing
• Plaintiff Counsel: Hamidul Haq, Thong Chee Kun, Ho Lifen and Michelle Lee (Rajah & Tann LLP)
• Citation: [2015] SGHC 8
• Defendant Counsel: Alan Loh, Grace Lim, Sherlyn Neo and Asoka Markandu (Attorney-General's Chambers)
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Magistrate’s Appeal No 158 of 2014/01/02

Chan Seng Onn J:

This case concerns two magistrate’s appeals against the decision of the District Judge in Public Prosecutor v Ding Si Yang [2014] SGDC 295 (“the GD”). The first appeal, Magistrate’s Appeal No 158 of 2014/01, is an appeal by Ding Si Yang (“Ding”) against conviction and sentence. The second, Magistrate’s Appeal No 158 of 2014/02, is the prosecution’s cross-appeal against sentence.

After a 25-day trial in the court below, Ding was found guilty on three charges of corruptly giving gratification to three Lebanese match officials as an inducement for them to fix a football match that they would be officiating, which are offences under s 5(b)(i) of the Prevention of Corruption Act (Cap 241, 1993 Rev Ed) (“PCA”).

Section 5 of the PCA reads as follows:

5. Any person who shall by himself or by or in conjunction with any other person — (a) corruptly solicit or receive, or agree to receive for himself, or for any other person; or (b) corruptly give, promise or offer to any person whether for the benefit of that person or of another person,

any gratification as an inducement to or reward for, or otherwise on account of — (i) any person doing or forbearing to do anything in respect of any matter or transaction whatsoever, actual or proposed; or (ii) any member, officer or servant of a public body doing or forbearing to do anything in respect of any matter or transaction whatsoever, actual or proposed, in which such public body is concerned,

shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $100,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 5 years or to both.

On 24 July 2014, the trial judge sentenced Ding to 18 months’ imprisonment on each of the charges, with two (DAC 11276/2013 and DAC 11277/2013) to run consecutively. The total sentence was therefore 3 years’ imprisonment.

On 19 September 2014, I dismissed Ding’s appeal against conviction. On 17 October 2014, I reserved judgment after hearing the arguments of the parties on sentence. In this judgment, I am only dealing with the issues relevant to the appropriate sentence.

The relevant facts

The relevant facts, as found by the trial judge, can be briefly summarised. On 2 April 2013, three Lebanese football match officials arrived in Singapore to officiate an Asian Football Confederation (“AFC”) Champions League match to be held on the following day. The three officials were Ali Sabbagh (“PW1”), Ali Eid, and Abdallah Taleb.

PW1 had been introduced to Ding by one of PW1’s friends. Ding used the pseudonym “James Zen” when communicating with PW1. These conversations were innocuous at first. Ding explained to PW1 that he had a company that organised international friendly matches and he was looking to employ overseas referees. However, it turned out that Ding had more sinister motives. Ding’s real interest was to get PW1 involved in his match-fixing activities.

In March 2013, PW1 called Ding to let him know of his upcoming trip to Singapore. During this conversation, Ding told PW1 that since he was visiting Singapore for the first time, Ding must “take care” of him. When PW1 asked the accused to “find some girls”, Ding laughed and told him that girls “[are] very easy in Singapore”.

Ding was also aware that Abdallah Taleb and Ali Eid would be coming to Singapore together with PW1 in April 2013. In an email to PW1, Ding had asked PW1 if the two of them would be “interested in doing business”.

After his arrival in Singapore, PW1 had several conversations with Ding about “girls”. PW1 said that Ding called him after a meeting in a Subway restaurant to tell PW1 that he wanted to “give” him girls, and asked PW1 what type of girls he needed. After checking with the other two match officials, PW1 subsequently asked Ding to provide them with the girls he promised.

In the early hours of 3 April 2013, the three match officials were visited by three social escorts who provided them with sexual services that the match officials did not have to pay for. The trial judge found that it was Ding who supplied them with the social escorts, at no cost. Ding used an intermediary, one Choo Beng Huat, to contact the “mamasan” of the girls. The extent of Choo’s involvement is not entirely clear as Choo was not called as a witness. While there is no evidence that the social escorts were expressly told to provide sexual services to the match officials, the trial judge found that sexual services were within the scope of the services that they were to provide, and that payment would be forthcoming from whoever booked them for this purpose.

Before coming to his decision as to Ding’s motive for giving the match officials gratification, the trial judge found that Ding was either a match-fixer or involved in match-fixing. The trial judge was inclined to believe PW1’s testimony that Ding had asked him to fix an AFC Cup quarter-final match in September 2012, but PW1 did not do so, which resulted in a scolding from Ding by email. PW1 also stated that in an AFC Cup semi-final match held in Iraq in October 2012, PW1 (as the reserve referee) overheard two of the main match officials speaking about fixing the match. One of them said that “James” would be giving him money and a mobile phone.

Ding’s involvement in match-fixing is also apparent from the contents of certain emails. Of particular interest are two emails that Ding sent to PW1. The first email contained several links to videos of certain controversial refereeing decisions that had been uploaded to YouTube. The forensic examination of Ding’s notebook did not uncover the exact email that was sent to PW1 but similar emails sent to other persons were retrieved, and PW1 gave evidence that he received a similar email from Ding.¹

For context, I will set out more details about this email. It was titled “Education Video”.² The email had two sections, one “For REFEREES” and one “FOR ASSISTANTS REFEREES [sic]”. For referees, Ding had a list of videos under the headings “How to give Penalties if we WANT goals” and “BEST Penalty Given”. In describing this “best” penalty, Ding had written “how he do job Saudi Referee, nobody drop nobody do anything in the box when corner come in he just blow”.

For assistant referees, he also had videos listed under the following headers: “Look at how the assistant referees put up FLAG (goalkeeper move before kick or players go into penalty box encroachment) and RETAKE the penalty if miss!!”, “If we WANT goals; clear OFFSIDE but Goal given” and “If we DO NOT want goals; NO OFFSIDE but Goal NOT given”.

Ding told PW1 to watch the videos to do a “good job”. PW1 understood this to mean that Ding wanted him to make the wrong decisions. As the trial judge put it, “people do not normally send FIFA officials links to videos showing bad or controversial refereeing decisions and then telling [sic] them to ‘do a good job’”. As Ding kept a high level of operational security, the trial judge inferred that he did not erase this particular email because “it was a meticulously curated set of YouTube links and he may have had reason in the future to send it to other referees” (the GD at [52]). This email, which was kept in an encrypted email folder, was retrieved from Ding’s notebook.³

The second email (dated 6 August 2012) was in response to questions that PW1 sent Ding.⁴ The trial judge summarised the email as follows (at [55] of the GD):

55 The e-mail, which is too lengthy to reproduce here, exhorted PW1 to look at the videos to “try to understand how to do a good job.” The e-mail also purported to answer two of PW1’s questions:

55.1 The first answer was that they (as the accused used “we” instead of “I”) did not “do jobs” for all matches and gave 4 reasons why they would not do a job.

55.2 The second answer was that PW1 “can stop do job anytime you want. There is no force or must do.” However, he assured PW1 that nobody will stop because “this business give better money in 1 year more than you be AFC referees for 10 years.”

There was also an email on 5 November 2012 that Ding sent to PW1 that said: “Like I said, if you feel comfortable or confident to do a job let me know.”

The trial judge also noted the furtiveness of the transaction. Ding’s use of a false name in dealing with the match officials has already been mentioned (at [7] above). He used a SIM card registered to an unknown foreigner when calling PW1 on his handphone. He also encrypted his notebook and used email and messaging services that involved encrypted communications.

Nevertheless, the trial judge found that there was, as yet, no agreement between Ding and any of the match officials to fix any “actual” match. Instead, Ding had provided the gratification to induce the match officials to agree to get involved with Ding in match-fixing. To borrow the trial judge’s words, Ding was trying to secure an “in principle” agreement before he would divulge the necessary particulars. In a sense, it was part of the preliminary preparation to the actual act of match-fixing. The corrupt object of the transaction, therefore, is the buying over of the match officials, the type of act that Yong Pung How CJ described aptly in Hassan bin Ahmad v Public Prosecutor [2000] 2 SLR(R) 567 at [20] as the purchase of the recipient’s servitude.

The trial judge’s reasons for the sentence

In determining the appropriate sentence to be meted to Ding, the trial judge looked at the harm or potential harm of the offence, as well as Ding’s individual culpability.

On the issue of harm, he noted that match-fixing offences have the effect of putting the sport into disrepute. They also affect Singapore’s reputation as a place with low levels of corruption, especially taking into account Singapore’s drive to be a prime venue for prestigious international sporting events. He also found that the harm caused by match-fixing today is greater than in the past, as a result...