The Student, The Cop, The Property Agent And The Judicial System

Student S was fined $2,000 yesterday for perverting the course of justice by soliciting assistance of police deputy superintendent P who lined up property agent A to take the rap for beating a red light.

Police deputy superintendent P was sentenced to 6 months for "recommending" A as the fall guy, since latter had already chalked up a checkered history of demerit points. How convenient to have access to police records of traffic violations.

Property agent A was sentenced to 3 months, probably because she had previously spent 2 months in the slammer in 2008 for hurting a public servant, drink driving, failure to give a breath specimen and disorderly behavior. She was fortunate not to have being slapped with additional charges of being rude to an officer and resisting arrest.

Student S was let off easy for her misdemeanor, because District Judge Jill Tan believed in a psychiatric report that claimed a "causal link" between her depression and calling up a police pal to rope in a sucker. And the good judge was convinced there was little chance of her repeating the offence, hence sparing her jail time. For the 2008 vehicular related offence of beating a traffic light, driving without licence or insurance, and without the car owner's permission, S had paid a fine of $1,900. The punishment for getting someone to assume criminal liability for running a red light apparently attracts a jail term up to 7 years and/or fine of $10,000.

So did S pull off an Oscar worthy performance in the courts? She had already sweet talked her Bulgarian business manager partner into letting her live in for 6 whole months (another media report refers to the foreigner as a "housemate"). And she was featured in a Maxim spread in 2007, suitably attired for ogling by the type of alpha males who buy those glossies. Depressed or not, her lawyer Lim Kia Tong told the court that his client would still be appealing against the sentence.

The other Oscar contender could be the female who hit a bicyclist so hard he flew onto her left windscreen, cracking the shatterproof glass, and dragged the crumpled bike for several kilometres. She told the judge the Lexus she was driving had such excellent sound proofing that she was unaware of the impact, and drove straight home to sleep in her good class bungalow. And the judge took her at her word.