Man jailed, fined for making fake marriage certificate
By Shaffiq Alkhatib | Posted: 29 August 2011 1804 hrs
His girlfriend became pregnant and pestered him to get married in 2006. Jerome Ow Siew Nam was already hitched to a Thai woman since 2004. Instead of coming clean, he faked a marriage certificate to fool Ms Ng Siew Chiau. -- ST PHOTO: WONG KWAI CHOW
SINGAPORE: A 38-year old manager, Jerome Ow Siew Nam, was sentenced to jail and a fine on Monday for making a fake marriage certificate.
Ow was separated but not divorced from his Thai wife Usa Naree when he started seeing another woman in 2006.
His girlfriend, who was unaware of his marital status, became pregnant with his child and wanted him to marry her. To appease her, Ow scanned his original marriage certificate and made a copy, replacing his wife's name with that of his 28-year-old girlfriend's.
He made the false document sometime between October 2006 and February 2007.
Ow was sentenced on Monday to two weeks' jail for this offence and was also fined S$5,000.
Ow tied the knot with Ms Usa, a social escort, in 2004 but their marriage was an unhappy one. She went back to Thailand about two years later and took their young son with her.
During this separation, Ow started seeing his new girlfriend and gave her the false marriage certificate after she pestered him to marry her. He lied to her, claiming that his grandmother's lawyer had settled their paperwork and they need not go down to the Registry of Marriages.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Amardeep Singh said the girlfriend believed Ow and the couple even had a marriage ceremony on February 14, 2007.
DPP Singh said the pair then lived together as so-called man and wife with the girlfriend's parents. But she became suspicious two days after the ceremony and decided to check with the ROM about their marriage. Only then did the girlfriend find out that Ow had deceived her and she informed the police.
The court heard that Ow's marriage with Ms Usa only dissolved in 2009.
Defence Counsel, Montague Choy had said in his mitigation plea that his client's offence was "merely technical" and "not serious".
However, District Judge Francis Remedios disagreed with this and stressed that third parties as well as public bodies could be affected by the offence. Citing an example, the judge said that the girlfriend had to produce a marriage certificate to register her child in school.
Ow's jail term will begin on September 12 as he has to settle some personal matters first. He has to surrender to the authorities by noon that day and is now out on a bail of S$6,000.
-CNA/ac
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