Mohd Ghalib s/o Sadruddin v Public Prosecutor

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Yong Pung How CJ
• Judgment Date: 24 August 2002
• Neutral Citation: [2002] SGHC 188
• Docket Number: Magistrate's Appeal No 99 of 2002
• Date: 24 August 2002
• Published date: 19 September 2003
• Year: 2002
• Plaintiff Counsel: Gurdaib Singh (Gurdaib, Cheong & Partners)
• Citation: [2002] SGHC 188
• Defendant Counsel: Ivan Chua Boon Chwee (Deputy Public Prosecutor)
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Subject Matter: s 28(b) Prevention of Corruption Act (Cap 241, 1993 Ed),Prevention of Corruption Act,Criminal Procedure and Sentencing,Evidence,s 28 Prevention of Corruption Act (Cap 241, 1993 Ed),Whether trial judge correct in accepting expert witness's opinion that appellant wrote letter,Witnesses,Whether information misleading,Sentencing,Statutory offences,Giving misleading information to CPIB,Giving misleading information to CPIB under cover of another person's name,Expert witness,Whether appellant's sentence manifestly excessive,s 28(a) Prevention of Corruption Act (Cap 241, 1993 Ed),Criminal Law

Judgment

GROUNDS OF DECISION

This was an appeal against the decision of district judge Audrey Lim who convicted the appellant on three charges under the Prevention of Corruption Act (Cap 241). The first two charges were under s 28(a) of the Act for knowingly giving misleading information relating to an offence under the Act to the Corruption Practices Investigation Bureau (‘CPIB’) by a letter allegedly written by the appellant. The third charge was under s 28(b) of the Act for knowingly giving misleading information to the CPIB by writing the letter in the name of another person. The appellant was sentenced to six weeks’ imprisonment on each charge, with the terms of imprisonment on the first and third charges to run consecutively, thus totalling 12 weeks’ imprisonment. The appellant appealed against both conviction and sentence. I dismissed the appeal and now give my reasons.

The facts

2 Sometime in late June 2000, the CPIB received a letter (‘the letter’) dated 27 June 2000, addressed to one Osman bin Ahmad, a Senior Special Investigator at the CPIB. The letter contained several allegations surrounding officers from the Traffic Police, namely one Steven Tang (‘Steven’), then Officer-in-Charge of the Transport Section (‘OC Transport’), and his superior DSP Loh Kim Hock (‘DSP Loh’) who was then the Head of Administration (‘Head Admin’). In particular, two of the allegations formed the subject matter of the first and second charges.

3 The first allegation stated that at the Traffic Police, Steven

became very close to present Head Admin DSP Loh Kim Hock, by doing personal favours and errands for him. Being obligated, Loh Kim Hock appointed him as OC Transport despite so many hues and cries from other staff of TP. There were other competent officers for the post of OC Transport but were left out.

The second allegation stated that:

The present towing company namely Eng Bee Chop is awarded contract every year by the present Head Admin Loh Kim Hock. We believe there is something fishy.

4 The back of the envelope containing the letter bore the name of one Paul Anthony (‘Paul’), who was another officer of the Traffic Police. This formed the subject of the third charge, in that the appellant, also a Traffic Police officer, had given misleading information to the CPIB, namely that one Paul Anthony had written the letter.

Decision of the trial judge

5 The trial judge was satisfied, based on the handwriting analysis of document and handwriting examiner Yap Bei Sing (‘Yap’) as well as surrounding circumstances, that it was the appellant Ghalib who had written the letter. She accepted Yap’s expert opinion on the basis that he was able to "conclusively" say that it was Ghalib who had written the letter after finding that the appellant’s normal and request specimen handwriting tallied with that in the letter. She found no reason to disagree with Yap, as this was a matter outside the technical competence of the court. Noting that Yap was an experienced expert who had examined about 3000 cases, of which 85% comprised handwriting examination and signature verification, she was satisfied that his opinion was formed on the basis of sound reasoning as he had explained how he compared the letter against the handwriting of Paul and Ghalib. She also found him to be a reliable witness who had maintained neutrality and impartiality in exercising his judgment, having readily admitted that document examination was not an exact science but an opinion science and that there would be variations in a person’s handwriting.

6 The trial judge followed the decision of the Court of Appeal in Saeng-Un Udom v PP [2001] 3 SLR 1 which held that:

the court should not, when confronted with expert evidence, which is unopposed and appears not to be obviously lacking in defensibility, reject it nevertheless and prefer to draw its own inferences. While the court is not obliged to accept expert evidence by reason only that it is unchallenged… if the court finds that the evidence is based on sound grounds and supported by basic facts, it can do little else than to accept the evidence.

7 She also looked at surrounding circumstances which indicated that the writer of the letter was more likely to be someone in the Traffic Police because it was signed off by a "group of police officers from TP" and in fact the envelope bore the name of "Paul Anthony", an officer from the Traffic Police. The writer must have been quite close to Paul because Paul testified that he was known to his friends as "Paul Anthony". He must also have been quite familiar with Steven, DSP Loh and the Traffic Police based on the contents of the letter. For instance, he could allude to Steven’s prior posting at Security Branch, that he had resigned and subsequently rejoined the Police Force, that he was in Transport Unit and was promoted to OC Transport when DSP Loh was Head Admin, and that Eng Bee Chop had been the towing contractors of the Traffic Police for many years. An outsider would not have readily known this.

8 In addition, the trial judge was of the opinion that the writer must have been aggrieved by Steven’s promotion to OC Transport which occurred in June 2000, around the time when the letter was written, and he would more probably than not be someone who was working with Steven or under him in the same department and who did not get along with him. The writer also must have borne a grudge against DSP Loh because of the allegation of impropriety in the letter. In this respect, Paul and Ghalib had openly admitted in their testimonies to being unhappy with and bearing a grudge against DSP Loh and Steven. The trial judge ruled out Paul as the culprit on the basis of Yap’s expert opinion as well as the reasoning that Paul would not have blatantly used his name in writing the letter especially when he had already been investigated and charged previously for filing an anonymous complaint. Instead, she was satisfied that Ghalib was the writer of the letter as it was dated 27 June 2000, shortly after Ghalib failed in his delivery duties during the National Day rehearsals on 24 June 2000 and shortly after DSP Loh told Ghalib on 26 June 2000 that formal investigations would be carried out to take disciplinary action against him. Moreover, the letter was posted at Tanjong Pagar, which according to DSP Loh, was near Ghalib’s residence and it was addressed to a CPIB officer known to Ghalib.

9 As such, she was satisfied that Ghalib was the writer of the letter and he had knowingly given misleading information to the CPIB. She held him guilty on the third charge.

10 As for the first charge, the trial judge was of the opinion that the material information which was misleading was not whether there was much hue and cry over Steven’s appointment but rather the allegation that DSP Loh had appointed Steven as OC Transport because he was obligated to Steven for running personal errands and favours. Thus although she accepted that there was dissatisfaction among some of the officers on Steven’s appointment and he was not popular among certain quarters, she held that the information in the letter was nevertheless misleading as there was no evidence that Steven had done personal favours and errands for DSP Loh nor that there was any impropriety in DSP Loh’s appointment of Steven as OC Transport.

11 With regards to Ghalib’s and Paul’s accusations that Steven was hanging pictures and painting carpark lots as a personal favour to DSP Loh during the Traffic Police’s shift to its new premises at Ubi Avenue, the trial judge accepted that it was part of Steven’s administrative duties to carry out these tasks along with other officers and noted that this was done in the open and not surreptitiously. She rejected Paul’s testimony that Steven had informed him that he was running personal errands for DSP Loh in order to get a promotion. This was done on the basis of Steven’s own denial and her opinion that it would have been foolish of Steven to have blatantly declared this to anyone, especially to his subordinate, even if he indeed had such an ulterior intent. She bore in mind the fact that Paul had an axe to grind as he was still angry with DSP Loh and Steven whom he regarded as being responsible for his dismissal from the Police Force and treated his testimony with caution. Ghalib was also unable to give details of the alleged personal favours and claimed to have merely heard this from Paul. She was further convinced that DSP Loh had appointed Steven on merit as it was the former OC Transport SSgt Chong Kok Chong (‘Chong’) and not DSP Loh who recommended Steven for the promotion and DSP Loh even instructed Steven and the then Asst OC Transport SSgt Mohd Noh (‘Mohd Noh’) to reverse appointments upon the latter’s promotion to staff sergeant. This was supported by Steven’s testimony.

12 The trial judge went on to find that Ghalib had fulfilled the mens rea requirement of the offence in that he clearly knew the allegations to be misleading. This was due to the fact that Ghalib had said he was very sure and "felt very strongly" that the allegations were true, but he could not give a convincing explanation for this. He alleged that he had heard "a lot of" officers were unhappy with...