Ex-police officer admits to forgery
Elena Chong The Straits Times Sunday, Nov 30, 2014
An investigation officer who committed 60 offences of mainly forgery for close to two years pleaded guilty in court yesterday.
Norazly Joihani, 33, whose services were terminated in March this year, was a sergeant attached to the Bedok police division's investigation branch when he committed the offences between January 2009 and November 2010. Among his charges were criminal breach of trust and cheating. He admitted to 14 counts, with the remaining 46 charges to be considered when he is sentenced on Jan 8.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Kenneth Chin said that as a duty investigation officer, Norazly had to deal with police reports under the division's jurisdiction for the day. Every morning the next day, a panel by the police management will be convened to give directions and assignments on each report.
The police reports, together with the accompanying directions assignments, would be reflected on the daily monitoring returns list and countersigned by a superior officer. The officer assigned to look into the respective reports would have to comply with the directions set out in the list.
Norazly forged the document by making cancellations and countersigning against the amendment in the name of his supervisor to avoid performing his lawful duties as an investigation officer.
By making the entry, he would not have to create an investigation paper and investigate the case. He did not, in fact, investigate the matter.
He also forged the acknowledgement forms for the return of case exhibits, which had been seized during investigation. He returned the acknowledgement forms to the division store and the rightful owners never got their property returned to them. He kept the items instead.
The DPP said the case was a unique one involving forgery of the daily monitoring returns list such that Norazly would not need to commence investigation into the matters as directed by his superior.
"The 32 cases for which the accused has been charged with involved six cases of 'unnatural deaths' where coroner inquiries would be conducted, eight cases of deaths with natural causes and 18 active matters which required investigations to be conducted. Due to the accused's offending behaviour, investigations into these live cases were not carried out until his crimes were eventually discovered," he said.
Pleading for leniency, Norazly's lawyer, Mr Jason Dendroff, said his client was truly remorseful and did not gain anything. He said the married father of three committed the offences out of folly and he wanted to make sure the daily monitoring file was kept at a certain quota.
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