Public Prosecutor v Deng Xiaohong

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Kamala Ponnampalam
• Judgment Date: 06 February 2008
• Neutral Citation: [2008] SGDC 23
• Court: District Court (Singapore)
• Published date: 13 March 2008
• Year: 2008
• Plaintiff Counsel: Victoria Lee (Prosecuting officer from Ministry of Manpower)
• Defendant Counsel: Accused in person
• Citation: [2008] SGDC 23

6 February 2008

District Judge Kamala Ponnampalam:

The Charge

1. This Grounds of Decision arises from an appeal against conviction and sentence by the Accused.

2. The Accused, Deng Xiaohong, was tried on the following charge:

MOM 2423/2007

You,

Deng Xiaohong, Female (23/09/1974)

PPT No.: G04737978

PRC National

are charged that you, on or about 20 March 2006, in Singapore, did make a false statement in an Application for an S Pass (Form 8) which was submitted to the Work Pass Division of the Ministry of Manpower on 24 March 2006 to obtain an S Pass for you to work for a company known as Sakura Family Restaurant (Bukit Panjang) Pte Ltd, RCB No. 220103214R, as a restaurant manager, to wit, you signed the said application and stated that you had graduated from Shandong Institute of Economics, PRC, with a Diploma in Business Management, when you knew this to be false in a material particular, and you have thereby committed an offence under Section 22(1)(d) of the Employment of Foreign Workers Act, Chapter 91A and punishable under Section 22(1) of the same Act.

3. At the end of the trial, I found the Accused guilty and convicted her accordingly. I imposed a sentence of 2 months’ imprisonment. I shall now set out the basis for my decision.

Case for the Prosecution

4. The Prosecution had five witnesses. In summary, their case was that the Accused made a false statement about her highest educational qualification in her S Pass application form. She had stated in the form that she had a Diploma in Business Management from the Shandong Institute of Economics when she knew this to be false. She had also submitted a forged diploma certificate from the Shandong Institute of Economics in support of her application.

PW1 Wong Meau Chan

5. PW1 Wong Meau Chan, the case Investigating Officer from the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), testified that he commenced investigations after the case was referred to him by the Work Pass Division. He tendered in evidence the Accused’s S Pass application form (P2), the S Pass card which was issued to the Accused (P3), and two statements recorded from the Accused, P5 and P6.

PW2 Goh Cheng Hwa

6. PW2 Goh Cheng Hwa, the employment agent who submitted the Accused’s S Pass application form, testified that he was introduced to the Accused by an acquaintance, Zhuang Jian Hua. PW2 met Zhuang on a bus and Zhuang told him that the Accused was looking for work. A few days later, Zhuang arranged a meeting at a coffee shop outside the MOM building. The Accused, PW2 and Zhuang were present at this meeting. During the meeting, the Accused handed to PW2 photocopies of her documents. Amongst them was a Graduation Certificate issued in the name of the Accused for a Business Management course by the Shandong Institute of Economics as well as a translation of this certificate. PW2 looked at these documents and informed the Accused that he believed that her application would be successful. He then gave her the contact details of a few potential employers including Sakura Family Restaurant.

7. The Accused attended an interview with the Director of Sakura Family Restaurant, Mike Cheong Wah Meng (PW4). Soon after the interview, PW4 informed PW2 that he intended to employ the Accused and asked PW2 to make the necessary application. PW2 completed P2 using the information found in the documents handed to him by the Accused. Both the Accused and PW4 signed P2 after which he sent the application to MOM on 21 March 2006. PW2 also testified that the Accused paid him a fee of $3 000.00 to $4 000.00.

8. A few months later, the Accused, as well as her employer, PW4, were called up for investigations by the officers from MOM. As a result, PW4 chose not to renew the Accused’s work pass. The Accused then approached PW2 and asked him for a refund of the fees. She told him that she had been fired by Sakura Family Restaurant and needed the money to return home. PW2 wrote her a cheque for about $1,500.00. About a month later, the Accused returned and this time she demanded for the return of the rest of the fees. She threatened to expose PW2 as an unlicensed agent if he did not. She said that she will not mention PW2’s name to the MOM officers if he returned the money. Eventually, PW2 gave her about $2 000.00.

PW3 Abby Wong

9. PW3 Abby Wong, the Processing Manager of the Work Pass Division, MOM, gave evidence that she dealt with the Accused’s S Pass application, P2. The documents which had been submitted to support the application were the translated resume, the translated diploma certificate, the diploma certificate in Chinese, the work testimonial issued by the Qingdao Yulong Restaurant in China and the Accused’s identity card in China.

10. PW3 testified that she found the diploma certificate suspicious as the Accused’s photograph on the certificate showed a mature person while most diploma certificates would carry a photograph of a much younger person. She sent the certificate for verification through the Singapore Embassy in Beijing. The Shandong Institute of Economics eventually confirmed that the certificate was a forgery. Meanwhile, the application was processed based on the information contained in it and the Accused was granted an S Pass on 25 April 2006. She added that educational qualification is one of the criteria for an S Pass application and without the diploma certificate the Accused would not have had as high a chance of securing the S Pass.

11. PW3 told the court that the Accused first came to Singapore on a Training Visit Pass to train at Soup Restaurant Pte Ltd. A Training Visit Pass was different from an S Pass in that it was meant for the holder of the pass to receive training in Singapore and not to work. It was valid for a period of 12 months and there can be no renewal of the Training Visit Pass. The criteria for the Training Visit Pass are less stringent than for an S Pass. There is no need for educational qualifications if one of the other criteria is met – for instance a training allowance of $2 500.00. The Accused met this criterion and so there was no need to look into her educational qualifications. This would explain why her diploma certificate was not checked when her application for the Training Visit Pass was made.

PW4 Mike Cheong Wah Meng

12. PW4, Mike Cheong Wah Meng, the Director of Sakura Restaurant, gave evidence to confirm that the Accused was introduced to him by PW2. He interviewed the Accused and thereafter decided to employ her as a manager at his restaurant.

PW5 Zhao Li

13. PW5, Joyce Zhao Li, is the employment agent who submitted the Training Visit Pass application for the Accused. It was her evidence that she first met the Accused at a mass interview session in China. PW5 had arranged for a group of potential employers from Singapore to go to China to interview and recruit workers. The Accused was one of the short listed applicants.

14. PW5 had relied on the documents given to her by the agent in China to complete the application for the Training Visit Pass. These were in fact copies of the documents as originals were not required for the application. The only original documents which PW5 received were the notary certificates authenticating the copies of the documents. It was her evidence that she relied on these notary certificates as proof of the authenticity of the documents submitted.

15. PW5 also testified that the Accused came to Singapore only after her application for a Training Visit Pass had been approved and an In Principal Approval letter from MOM had been issued for her. It would therefore follow that PW5 would have received the Accused’s documents and submitted them to MOM long before the Accused arrived in Singapore. She could not recall how or when she received those documents as she dealt with numerous applications.

16. PW5 told the court that prior to the expiry of her Training Visit Pass, the Accused went to PW5’s office to retrieve her documents. The Accused came alone and PW2 was not with her. PW5’s evidence is that she is not even acquainted with PW2 and that he has never visited her office. PW2 too had similarly denied meeting PW5 or being acquainted with her.

17. The Accused in her questioning, tried to show that she had no knowledge of the forged diploma certificate. The thrust of her cross examination of the witnesses was to show that PW2 and PW5 were acquainted with each other and it was PW5 who referred the Accused to PW2 to make the S Pass application. That it was PW5 who handed to PW2 all the documents which were submitted in support of the application. She disputed the version that she had been introduced to PW2 by Zhuang Jian Hua and that the three of them met at a coffee shop outside the MOM building. She also tried to show that PW5 was aware that the Accused’s highest educational qualification was only a secondary school certificate in Accounting and that PW5 had a hand in producing the forged diploma certificate.

Close of Prosecution’s Case

18. At the close of the Prosecution’s case, having considered the evidence before me and applying the test laid down in Hwa Tua Tau v PP [1981] 2 MLJ 49, I came to the conclusion that the Prosecution had made out a prima facie case which if unrebutted would have warranted her conviction.

Case for the Defence

19. Only the Accused testified although she had informed the court that she wished to call Zhang Jian Hua as her witness. However, she was unable to secure his attendance in court.

Evidence of the Accused DW1 Deng Xiaohong

20. The Accused Deng Xiaohong’s evidence differed in several respects from the version given by the Prosecution witnesses. The Accused testified that she came to work in Singapore on a Training Visit Pass. Prior to that, she had attended an interview with PW5 in China which had been arranged by the agent in China. At this interview, she informed PW5 that her highest educational qualification was a secondary school certificate in Accounting. Thereafter, she handed all...