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Singapore
Sleuths or Keystone Cops?
10
Nov 06
If
anyone wants to learn how not to present credible evidence, this
is a must read.
In the ongoing trial of Mr Gandhi Ambalam,
Dr Chee Soon Juan and Mr Yap Keng Ho the prosecution relied
solely on police officers.
What was amazing in this simple
case of the three men allegedly speaking without a permit under
the Public Entertainments and Meetings Act was that all the 18
witnesses for the Prosecution were police officers!
Several
of them were held senior ranks such as Deputy Superintendents,
Assistant Superintendents, and Inspectors. Almost all of them
claimed they were at the scene on 22 April 2006 when SDP members
were selling the party newspaper and other publications.
Do
the police, responsible for maintaining law and order, always
deploy such a high-powered team to keep watch on members of a
political party engaged in routine activities?
The "crime"
happened two days after parliament was dissolved and nomination
day set for 27 Apr and polling day 6 May.
At the outset of
the trial, which started on 25 Oct, the first police witness, Sgt
Lester Wong, claimed he had received a call from one "Mr
Peter" at around 9 am on 22 Apr to complain that "SDP
members were selling newspapers and giving talks."
But
the witness told the court "it slipped my mind" to
record the call in the Station Diary, a normal practice for
police officers manning the front desk.
Furthermore, Sgt
Wong did not ask for the particulars of the caller, another
routine procedure.
The witness then told the court that
officers were briefed that morning to be on the lookout for
"sensitive cases" involving the SDP.
Is it
believable that given the sensitive nature of the call the
officer would forget to perform two procedural musts, that is,
take down the particulars of the complainant and record the call
in the Station Diary?
Sgt Wong even claimed that he did
not write down the information the caller gave on any note pad or
scrap of paper. This included the address of the place where the
crime was taking place.
Any normal person, let alone
police personnel trained to take complaints from the public,
taking down a message would instinctively reach for a pen and
paper to jot down the details.
Unless…unless there
was no caller…unless the police had prior knowledge about
the SDP's activities.
Did they? Did the police know
beforehand where the SDP was going to sell its newspaper and
when? (Do the three letters I, S and D come to mind?)
Let's
see. ASP Colin Wong, the Chief Investigation Officer of the Ang
Mo Kio Police Division, revealed when he was giving evidence that
he had briefed his men on 21 Apr (the day before the crime took
place) to take along video camera equipment if they received
calls of, echoing Sgt Lester Wong, "sensitive cases."
Did
ASP Colin Wong have a premonition?
Stranger still, the
officer testified that he continued taking care of his routine
activities after he received information about the incident and
didn't leave for the scene of crime until 35 minutes later.
If
two Wongs don't make a right, then their testimonies amounted to
much less.
Is anyone expected to believe that given such a
"sensitive" case (one in the same category, according
to ASP Colin Wong, as housebreaking, missing persons, and murder
cases), the telephone recorder would forget to record the callers
identity and the Chief Investigating Officer would respond to the
call only 35 minutes after he receives the information?
It
gets fishier.
Sgt Nor Hasdian, the officer on duty in the
Operations Room that morning, came on the stand and said that
when she received the call from desk officer Sgt Lester Wong, she
immediately "paged express" (SMS) the information to
four officers: the Operations Manager, Head Investigations,
Operations Officer, and the Commanding Officer.
Asked
repeatedly whether, apart from the four, she had sent the message
to anyone else, she said no and stuck to her answer of having
informed only the officers she mentioned.
But ASP Colin
Wong had testified earlier that he had received a message from
Sgt Hasdian.
DPP Ms Lee Lit Cheng knew she had to do
something. "Was there anyone else you passed the message on
to?" she asked.
"No," the officer
repeated.
The DPP persisted: "Apart from the four
officers, was there anyone else you informed?"
Probably
realising that something was amiss, Sgt Hasdian quickly changed
her story: "There is a list of officers apart from the four
that I sent the message to." Of course that list included
CIO Colin Wong.
Judge Eddy Tham, like every other person
in court, was clearly taken aback. "But you said that apart
from the four officers you mentioned you did not send the message
to anyone else," he tried to understand.
"Sorry,
Your Honour, I didn't understand the question earlier," the
Sgt replied while letting out a nervous giggle.
But the
web of contradiction didn't end there.
In her SMS message
that morning Sgt Hasdian wrote that Sgt Ken Kwek, who was the
duty Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) that day, "was
proceeding" to the scene. That was around 9:15 am.
Sgt
Kwek testified earlier that he left the police station only at
9:40 am.
Reality check: A call as "sensitive" as
a murder case comes in (sensitive enough for the Commnading
Officer of the Division to be informed) and no one proceeds to
the scene until nearly half-an-hour later?
The likelier
story was that Sgt Hasdian in the Operations Room received the
call from desk officer Lester Wong only much later, that is, at
9:30 am or after.
This makes much more sense given that
most of the officers testified that they left the station only at
9:40 am, including Sgt Ken Kwek whom Sgt Hasdian said in her SMS
message "was proceeding" (not "was going to
proceed") to the scene.
This is not only possible but
also probable.
Sgt Lester Wong, the very first witness,
had originally said that he had called the Operations Room
between 9:30 am and 9:45 am. He only changed his story after it
was pointed out to him that there was at least half-an-hour delay
between the time he received the call from ‘Peter' and the
time he relayed the message to Sgt Hasdian in the Operations
Room.
After some prompting by DPP Ms Lee Lit Cheng, the
witness changed his story and insisted that he called the
Operations Room at 9:15 am.
The Judge, who was not the
only one confused, sought to clarify the matter.
Here's
where the problem is compounded. The Investigating Officer ASP
Jeremy Koh, who was contacting and coordinating all the
witnesses, was in the courtroom and had overheard Sgt Lester
Wong's evidence.
Moreover ASP Jeremy Koh was seen going in
and out of the witness room and talking with the other witnesses.
He only left the courtroom after the Defendants lodged a bitter
complaint.
A witness listening in on fellow witnesses'
testimony is a fundamental no-no. Was it credible then for an
experienced legal officer such as DPP Lee to claim that this was
an "oversight"?
In the final analysis the comedy
of contradictions stems from one factor: The initial call from
the mysterious Peter.
If Peter had been a regular caller
making a regular complaint, his identity and the time of his call
would have been recorded.
Clearly, he wasn't just a
regular member of the public. We're not even sure if he
existed.
If we had known who this Peter was, our poor
police witnesses would have been spared from having to
surreptitiously sit in on the proceedings, trip over each other's
evidence and make themselves look like amateurs or, worse, their
comedic Keystone counterparts.
Whatever the case, the
sorry folly has been exposed.
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