Public Prosecutor v Tan Choon Huat Melvin

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Toh Yung Cheong
• Judgment Date: 04 October 2005
• Neutral Citation: [2005] SGDC 200
• Court: District Court (Singapore)
• Year: 2005
• Published date: 31 October 2005
• Plaintiff Counsel: James Lee (Deputy Public Prosecutor)
• Defendant Counsel: Michelle Armand and Wong Siew Hong (Infinitus Law Corporation)
• Subject Matter: Criminal Law,Offences,Documents,Abetting the counterfeiting of a device or mark used for authenticating documents,Accused aiding another person to produce forged banker's guarantee by making coloured photocopy of bank's letterhead and inserting on to it the text of a banker's guarantee based on a genuine guarantee,Accused contending he was being framed by other person who had been coerced by Commercial Affairs Department officers into falsely implicating him,Whether accused guilty of offence,Sentence,Sections 109, 471, 476 Penal Code (Cap 224, 1985 Rev Ed),Criminal Procedure and Sentencing,Sentencing,Principles,Mitigating factors,Accused playing minor role in offence,Accused deriving no benefit from actions,Accused committing offence to help a friend,Accused initially refusing to help and only agreeing to do so after much persuasion,No loss suffered by any party,Whether accused deserving lighter sentence than person whom he abetted,Statements,Investigation statements recorded by police,Accused applying for copies of investigation statements of himself and person whom he abetted,Application made after commencement of trial and during Prosecution's case but before person whom accused had abetted had given evidence,Whether accused entitled to statements at that stage of proceedings
• Citation: [2005] SGDC 200

4 October 2005 Judgment reserved.

District Judge Toh Yung Cheong

1. The accused, Melvin Tan Choon Huat, claimed trial to the following charge under section 109 read with sections 471 and 467 of the Penal Code, Chapter 224:

You, Tan Choon Huat Melvin, are charged that you, between the month of May 2004 to June 2004, in Singapore, did abet one Chew Yen, Ian (“Ian”) by intentionally aiding him to do a certain thing, namely, to forge a document which purports to be a valuable security, and in order to the doing of that thing, an act took place on 1 June 2004 at PWC Building located at No.8 Cross Street, Singapore, whereby you furnished the said Ian with a forged OCBC Banker’s Guarantee No. LG5CC400002917, knowing that he had intended to fraudulently use the same as genuine, which act was committed in consequence of your abetment and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under section 109 read with section 471 and section 467 of the Penal Code, Chapter 224.

2. At the conclusion of the trial, I convicted the accused on the charge. As he has appealed against his conviction, I now give the reasons for my decision.

The prosecution’s case

Agreed facts and introduction

3. The prosecution and the defence agreed to the admission of an agreed statement of facts (exhibit C) which sets out the undisputed background facts to this case.

4. Ian Chew (PW1), was a remisier who joined the stockbroking firm of GK Goh in April 2004. Prior to that, he was with DBS Vickers. On 8 June 2004, Ian Chew presented GK Goh with a forged OCBC banker’s guarantee with the serial number LG5CC40002917 (exhibit P6). Investigations revealed that this serial number was identical to the serial number on the accused’s genuine banker’s guarantee (exhibit P5).

5. The prosecution’s case, which is based mainly on the evidence of Ian Chew, was that the accused had assisted Ian Chew in the forgery by photocopying the letterhead of a bank and inserting in the text of the banker’s guarantee. Ian Chew then completed the forgery by stamping the names of the signatories and signing their names before handing the document to GK Goh.

Evidence of PW1 Kristine Ho Swee Lan and PW2 Doris Siow Yew Chuen

6. Kristine Ho (PW1) and Doris Siow (PW2) are employees with OCBC. The forged banker’s guarantee (exhibit P6) allegedly contained their initials. Both witnesses confirmed that they did not initial or sign the forged banker’s guarantee.

Evidence of PW3 Collin Tan

7. Collin Tan is the Senior Vice-President in charge of the operations department at GK Goh. He testified that when a new remisier joins GK Goh, they will have to sign an agency agreement. One of the terms of the agreement requires the remisier to furnish a banker’s guarantee.

8. According to Collin Tan, shortly after Ian Chew joined GK Goh around April 2004, he had chalked up contra losses on his personal account as well as his clients’ accounts. Ian Chew then asked Collin for an increased trading limit. However, Collin told Ian that he had to furnish more collateral in view of his trading losses and asked whether his family members could give him more collateral.

9. On 8 June 2004, Ian Chew had a meeting with a credit officer from GK Goh. He told the credit officer that he had a banker’s guarantee but did not want to show it to the credit officer but would instead hand the banker’s guarantee to Collin. Based on Collin’s previous interactions with Ian, Collin was aware that Ian was in financial difficulty and was surprised that he could furnish a banker’s guarantee. Thereafter, a check was done with OBCBC and it was discovered that the banker’s guarantee was not genuine.

10. At the request of the defence, Collin Tan subsequently produced a table (exhibit D2) showing that on 8 June 2004, Ian Chew’s losses from his personal account was $93,000 while the losses from his clients’ accounts was $8,000. Collin Tan also elaborated that on 26 April 2004, Ian’s trading losses were realised and GK Goh suspended the trading of Ian’s personal account.

Evidence of PW4 Chew Yen, Ian (“Ian”)

11. Ian Chew is 34 years old and at the time of the hearing, he was serving a 6 month sentence of imprisonment for an offence of forgery for the purpose of cheating under s.468 of the Penal Code. The offence is related to the present charge against the accused.

12. Prior to April 2004, Ian Chew was a remisier with the stockbroking firm DBS Vickers and a colleague of the accused. In April 2004, Ian Chew joined the stockbroking firm GK Goh. After a few months, Ian had incurred losses of around $93,000. As a result, his trading limits were cut. Sometime in May 2004, the company told him that the trading limits would be reinstated if Ian gave them an additional banker’s guarantee for $30,000. According to Ian, he did not believe them and suspected that if gave them a genuine banker’s guarantee, they might encash it against his trading losses. Therefore, he decided to forge a banker’s guarantee to test his hypothesis. If the company actually reinstated his trading limits, he claimed that he would furnish a genuine banker’s guarantee thereafter.

13. As part of his preparation to forge the guarantee, he visited a few photocopying shops but was informed by the shops with colour photocopiers that they would not photocopy the letterhead of a bank. One of the shops he visited was a shop in Toa Payoh at Block 113 but that particular shop did not have a colour photocopier[note: 1].

14. After he decided to forge a banker’s guarantee, the first thing he did was to look for a genuine OCBC banker’s guarantee. Ian explained that the reason why he wanted an OCBC banker’s guarantee was in the event that the forged banker’s guarantee was accepted by the company. If this happened, he would replace it with a genuine OCBC banker’s guarantee (as the insurance company he planned to use to underwrite his genuine guarantee also used OCBC bank).

15. The first person that Ian Chew decided to call was the accused. The accused was his ex-colleague, his lunch partner and good friend. After speaking to him, Ian discovered that the accused had an OCBC banker’s guarantee and the accused agreed to lend it to Ian. They then arranged to meet at the ground floor of the accused’s office at PWC Building at 1.50 pm. Ian could not remember the exact date of the meeting but estimated that it was a day after the phone call.

16. At this meeting, the accused brought his banker’s guarantee along and Ian took a look at it. After this, Ian asked the accused whether he had access to a colour photocopier and the accused said that he did. Ian then asked the accused for help in forging the banker’s guarantee using a colour photocopier but the accused did not agree. In fact, the accused was against the idea of forging a banker’s guarantee and told Ian that he should not forge the banker’s guarantee. Instead, the accused advised Ian to look for an insurance company to underwrite his banker’s guarantee.

17. As the accused refused to help Ian, Ian took the accused’s banker’s guarantee home to see whether it was feasible to forge the banker’s guarantee. All in all, the meeting lasted less than half an hour because it was close to the start of trading hours.

18. After returning home and taking a closer look at the accused’s banker’s guarantee. Ian formed the view that it was possible to forge it and decided to call the accused to try and persuade him to assist. This phone call was not on the same day but soon after that.

19. In order to persuade the accused, Ian told him that he needed the banker’s guarantee in order to save himself from bankruptcy and to get back his trading limits from GK Goh and that he was desperate. Ian also told him that this was not a reportable offence meaning that it was an internal matter and the company did not need to bring the matter to the police. In addition, Ian told the accused that he would shoulder the blame if anything went wrong. However, the accused still refused.

20. Ian Chew continued to call the accused and made a few calls to try and persuade him to help. During one of these calls, Ian said that he would draft out the banker’s guarantee and all the accused needed to do was to follow his instructions. Eventually, the accused agreed. Ian then drafted a banker’s guarantee and laid out the format. He did this by photocopying copies of the banker’s guarantee (in black and white) and changing the words.

21. At this second meeting, a few days after the first meeting, Ian met the accused during lunch hours at the foot of PWC Building. Ian handed to the accused the draft copy of the banker’s guarantee that he wanted forged, a copy of OCBC’s format, a copy of GK Goh’s format, and a copy of Ian’s own Indian Bank banker’s guarantee. Ian asked the accused to photocopy the letterhead on a colour photocopier and to feed the colour photocopy into a printer in order to overlay it with the words of the banker’s guarantee. Ian also asked the accused to be careful of the alignment and the choice of font and suggested that he should make a few colour photocopies just in case. Thereafter, Ian returned to work.

22. A few days after the second meeting, on a Saturday afternoon, Ian went to a shop in Tanjong Pagar to make rubber name stamps. The reason for doing so was that the accused’s OCBC banker’s guarantee was signed by PW1 Kristine Ho and PW2 Doris Siow and underneath their signatures, their names were stamped. The shop told him that it would take four days for the rubber stamps to be produced. This aspect of his evidence was corroborated by an invoice from the rubber stamp shop dated 29 May 2004, which was a Saturday (exhibit P8).

23. Before collecting the rubber stamps, he called the accused to check about the progress of the banker’s guarantee and told him that the rubber stamps would be ready on a Tuesday afternoon and asked to meet him on the same day he collected the rubber stamps.

24. The third meeting between Ian and the accused also...