Public Prosecutor v Victorine Noella Wijeysingha

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Choo Han Teck J
• Judgment Date: 19 March 2013
• Neutral Citation: [2013] SGHC 63
• Plaintiff Counsel: Navin S. Thevar (Attorney-General's Chambers)
• Docket Number: Magistrate’s Appeal No 87 of 2012 (DAC No 60801—60803 of 2010)
• Date: 19 March 2013
• Hearing Date: 08 February 2013
• Subject Matter: Criminal Law,Prevention of Corruption Act,Statutory offences
• Year: 2013
• Citation: [2013] SGHC 63
• Defendant Counsel: Peter Keith Fernando (Leo Fernando)
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Published date: 28 March 2013

Choo Han Teck J:

The respondent Victorine Noella Wijeysingha was acquitted of three charges under s 6(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act (Cap 241, 1993 Rev Ed) (“POCA”) of corruptly obtaining gratification from one Tan Kok Keong (“Tan”), the managing director of Kok Keong Landscape Pte Ltd (“KKL”), as an inducement for showing favour to KKL in relation to her principal’s affairs by being lenient in the supervision of contractual works performed by KKL and by assisting KKL in avoiding any delay in the completion of its works. The Public Prosecutor (“PP”) appealed against the acquittal on all three charges.

The three charges against the respondent involved the sums of $1,500, $1,000 and $1,500 that the respondent had received from Tan on three occasions in November 2008, January 2009 and March 2009 respectively when she was acting as a Resident Technical Officer (Landscape) (“RTO”) for landscaping works along Orchard Road carried out by the Singapore Tourism Board (“STB”). The STB’s landscaping works were contracted to one Expand Construction Pte Ltd (“Expand”) and the softscaping works were further subcontracted to TKK. The STB also engaged one Arborculture Pte Ltd (“Arborculture”) to provide arborist services, and the appellant was subsequently appointed by Arborculture as the RTO on a subcontract basis. Under the contract between the STB and Arborculture, the respondent was responsible for inspecting and certifying TKK’s works for compliance with the relevant contractual specifications and reporting to the STB, National Parks (“NParks”) and architects of the overall project. The Prosecution’s case at trial was that the respondent had been overly strict in her supervision of the works and was in a position to cause delays to TKK’s completion of the contractual works. Sometime in November 2008, the respondent allegedly told Tan that she could help to “take care” of the job and requested Tan to “cover” her. Tan agreed to “cover” her by making payments of $1,500 a month. These payments were therefore purportedly solicited from Tan by the respondent for the purpose of inducing her to be lenient in her supervision. The respondent did not dispute receiving the payments, but claimed that Tan had made the payments for additional services that she had provided to TKK prior to her appointment as the RTO. The District Judge held that the Prosecution had failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the respondent had corruptly intended to solicit and accept payments from Tan as inducements for her to exercise leniency in her supervision.

Before me, the Deputy Public Prosecutor (“DPP”) submitted that the court’s primary inquiry under s 6(a) should be the recipient’s state of mind. The District Judge had therefore misdirected herself in law by placing undue weight on Tan’s evidence on whether he had intended the payments to be made for the purpose of inducing the respondent to show leniency in her supervision and approval of the contractual works, and by failing to accord sufficient weight to other evidence that indicated the respondent’s belief that the payments had been made for such purpose. The DPP further relied on s 9(1) of the POCA, which provides as follows:

9.—(1) Where in any proceedings against any agent for any offence under section 6(a), it is proved that he corruptly accepted, obtained or agreed to accept or attempted to obtain any gratification, having reason to believe or suspect that the gratification was offered as an...