Wong Loke Cheng v Public Prosecutor

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Yong Pung How CJ
• Judgment Date: 11 December 2002
• Neutral Citation: [2002] SGHC 299
• Docket Number: Magistrate's Appeal No 127 of 2002
• Date: 11 December 2002
• Year: 2002
• Published date: 19 September 2003
• Plaintiff Counsel: Jimmy Yim SC and Eugene Quah (Drew & Napier LLC)
• Citation: [2002] SGHC 299
• Defendant Counsel: Winston Cheng Howe Ming (Deputy Public Prosecutor)
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Subject Matter: Findings of fact,Whether acts of receiving gratification on several different occasions constitute one composite offence,Appeal,Criminal Procedure Code (Cap 68, 1985 Rev Ed) s 261,Criminal Procedure and Sentencing,Sentencing,Whether any reason to interfere with trial judge's findings of fact,Penal Code (Cap 224, 1985 Rev Ed) s 71(1),Applicable principles,Approach of appellate court

Judgment

GROUNDS OF DECISION

The appellant, Wong Loke Cheng, was tried and convicted in the district court on nine amended charges of corruption pursuant to s 6(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act (Cap 241) (‘the Act’). The first amended charge read:

You, Wong Loke Cheng, Male 44/years, NRIC No: S1246390A, are charged that you, on or about the 14^th day of July 2000, at the Basement One Foodcourt at Chinatown Point Complex, Singapore, being an agent, namely, an Executive Director in the employ of Sea Consortium Pte Ltd, Singapore, did corruptly obtain from one Yu Yong Jun, Managing Director of Fortune Glory Pte Ltd, a gratification in the form of a sum of US$8,687 (US Dollars Eight Thousand Six Hundred And Eighty Seven), equivalent to S$15,067.60 (Singapore Dollars Fifteen Thousand Sixty Seven and Cents Sixty), as a reward for having done an act in relation to your principal’s affairs, to wit, having recommended to your principal in or about June 2000 the charter of the vessel ‘Da Fu’ from Da Lian Marine Shipping Corp, and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 6(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, Cap 241.

The other eight amended charges were the same in all material respects, save only for the amounts of the gratification obtained and the locations at which the offences were alleged to have taken place. The total gratification, paid out between July 2000 and May 2001, amounted to US$90,377.

2 The district judge sentenced the appellant to pay a penalty of S$157,255.98, which penalty he paid before I heard this appeal, and to a total of 10 months’ imprisonment for the nine amended charges. The appellant appealed against both conviction and sentence. I dismissed both appeals, and now give my reasons. The appeal against sentence was initially withdrawn, but as counsel made oral submissions on that point before me, I shall address the points he raised herein.

3 At the same time, the appellant filed Criminal Motion No. 11 of 2002 seeking to adduce new evidence at the appeal, which counsel for the appellant then sought leave to withdraw at the hearing before me. I granted such leave, and the criminal motion was duly withdrawn.

The proceedings below

The case for the prosecution

4 The prosecution’s case was essentially this: that the appellant, as executive director of Sea Consortium Pte Ltd (‘Sea Consortium’), had received US$90,377 in bribes from one Yu Yong Jun (‘Yu’), in return for procuring Sea Consortium’s charter of the vessel Da Fu from her owner, Da Lian Marine Shipping Corp (‘Da Lian’).

5 Sea Consortium provides scheduled container feeder services from four hub ports, Singapore, Colombo, Dubai and Malta, to minor ports within those regions. In order to provide such services, Sea Consortium charters various vessels. Yu is the managing director of Fortune Glory Pte Ltd (‘Fortune Glory’), which was the Da Fu’s shipping agent at the material time. Together with Da Lian and Far Glory Holdings Pte Ltd (‘Far Glory’), it is a subsidiary of the China-based Da Lian Shipping Group.

6 Yu was the key witness for the prosecution. He testified that in early June 2000 he knew that the Da Fu would be in Colombo in mid-June without any business. However, he wanted to bring the Da Fu back to Singapore for dry dock repairs and it was dangerous for the vessel to sail without any cargo. In these circumstances, he called the appellant, with whom he had been acquainted since 1994 through certain shipping industry events, although they only began working closely together from June 2000 onwards. He asked the appellant if he could charter the Da Fu so that it could be brought back to Singapore for repairs. The appellant said he would consider the matter, and call him back.

7 The appellant called Yu one or two days later. The appellant proposed that Sea Consortium charter the Da Fu for the journey back to Singapore (‘the voyage charter’), and enter into a one-year time charter of the same vessel thereafter (‘the time charter’). The proposed rate for the voyage charter was US$3,000 to US$3,200 per day, while that for the time charter would be US$5,000 to US$5,100 per day. The appellant added that he required ‘some personal benefits’ of US$300 per day for both charters. Yu told him that he could arrange for this. On the same day, he spoke by telephone to the chairman of the Da Lian Shipping Group, one Men Hong Sheng (‘Men’), who was in China. That night, Yu faxed Men setting out the details of the arrangement, which was then approved.

8 The faxed reply from China was not admitted at the trial below as no-one from China came to testify. The prosecution indicated that Men had been willing to come, but had then fallen ill and decided against travelling to Singapore. However, the defence sought to have and did have the faxed reply admitted as Exh D6 for the fax transmission details contained therein. Yu testified that the original faxes had been lost.

9 Subsequently, there were two meetings between Yu on the one hand, and the appellant and his associates on the other, to discuss the voyage charter and the time charter. The first meeting was on 7 June 2000 at Sea Consortium’s office. The appellant’s associates at this meeting were one Vico Lew (‘Capt Vico’) and one Surajdeep Singh (‘Capt Suraj’), a line manager at Sea Consortium. A charter rate of US$3,200 was agreed on. No formal agreement was signed. Instead, Yu tied up the details with the appellant via e-mail. The second meeting was on 15 June 2000. The appellant telephoned Yu asking him to come to his office. At this meeting, Sea Consortium’s chartering manager and head of the fleet management department, one Yong Lin Kong (‘Yong’), was present in addition to the appellant and Yu. At this meeting, a rate of US$5,100 per day was agreed on for the time charter. A formal agreement was signed. At neither meeting was the US$300 per day ‘personal benefit’ mentioned. Yu said that this was because he understood it to be a confidential matter between himself and the appellant.

10 The modus operandi for the payment of the bribes to the appellant was as follows. Yu calculated the first amount due to the appellant. For subsequent payments, he instructed his subordinate Zhang Li Qin (‘Zhang’), who was in charge of the financial affairs of Far Glory and Fortune Glory, to calculate the amounts and prepare the cash for him. Zhang would draw up a payment voucher and a cash cheque for each amount. In the payment vouchers, the payments were described as ‘commission’ for Sea Consortium. Yu paid the appellant in US dollars, cash, to avoid leaving evidence behind. He made a total of nine payments. Yu met the appellant at the Chinatown Point Foodcourt and the Amara Hotel coffee house to make the first two payments. For the remaining seven payments, Yu parked his car at Duxton Road, near Sea Consortium’s office, and handed the appellant the cash in the car. Yu said that they would then go for drinks or some food, but could not remember where they went each time. He also could not remember the precise dates on which the payments were made. The dates provided to the court below were mainly based on the dates of the payment vouchers and the cash cheques.

11 Yu would place the cash in envelopes to hand over to the appellant. One such envelope was Exh P13. This was the envelope used for the second payment. It was recovered from the appellant’s residence when it was raided by officers from the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (‘CPIB’). The dates on the envelope, ‘10 Aug – 9 Sep 2000’, were written in Yu’s handwriting and represented the period for the second payment. However, Yu made an error of a day when writing those dates down. They should have been 9 August to 8 September 2000.

12 Yu created five sham receipts for some of the payments. In them, one ‘LC Wong’ was stated to have received ‘address commission’ from Fortune Glory for Sea Consortium’s charter of the Da Fu. Yu said that he did not ask the appellant to sign the receipts as he knew that the appellant would not have done so. Yu did not prepare receipts for the remaining payments as he was busy with his work and did not have the time to do so.

13 Sea Consortium had previously chartered the Da Fu’s sister ship, the Da Fa. In April or May 2001, this charter ended and was not renewed by Sea Consortium. However, Yu discussed the charter of another vessel, the Da Lian, with the appellant around this period. Sea Consortium did eventually charter this vessel at US$6,300 per day. The appellant did not ask for any ‘personal benefits’ this time.

14 Two CPIB officers, one Soh Kin Wai and one Lim Yong Seng Vincent, testified that on 25 June 2001 they raided the appellant’s residence and found four envelopes containing substantial amounts of US dollars in cash, including Exh P13. They testified further that, when asked, the appellant told them that he was keeping the money to invest in a ship.

15 Apart from his executive directorship at Sea Consortium, the appellant was also involved in two other companies, namely, Joint Fun Investments Pte Ltd (‘Joint Fun’) and Royal Ship Brokering Services (‘RSS’). The appellant was a part-time consultant for Joint Fun, giving advice on ships’ suitability for the feeder market. He had set up RSS jointly with one Chan Yew Thong, an ex-classmate. RSS provided boarding, checker and ship planning services to Sea Consortium. When the appellant’s superior at Sea Consortium, one Timothy Hartnoll (‘Hartnoll’), asked him directly if he was involved in RSS, he denied it.

The defence

16 In his defence below, the appellant denied that the corrupt payments ever took place. It was Capt Suraj’s idea, in early June 2000, to charter the Da Fu following his encounter with Yu on board the Da Fa during a routine inspection. Capt Suraj was the line manager in charge of the Singapore-Colombo-Chittagong service. Yu told Capt Suraj that he had a ship due for redelivery from the last...