SINGAPORE: The prosecution on Friday (Dec 11) urged a court to convict a teacher of misappropriating about S$40,000 of student funds, as both sides made closing arguments in a trial that has spanned two years. All 20 teachers in the school's English department testified in court during the course of the trial.
Maslinda Zainal, now 46, was the Head of Department for English at Woodgrove Secondary School when she allegedly misappropriated about S$40,000 paid by the students for learning materials between January 2016 and April 2017.
AdvertisementAdvertisementThe suspended teacher, who has a masters in education and had multiple teachers reporting to her at the time, denied the charges of criminal breach of trust as a public servant.
In her defence, she said she did not keep records of the cash as nobody told her she needed to, adding that she had used the money to buy stationery and other items for the students.
Deputy Public Prosecutor David Koh urged the judge to convict Maslinda, saying that she was an educator of considerable experience who oversaw the collection of money by teachers in her department for resource packages and liaised with the bookstore that printed them.
She was the only one who knew that the teachers had been over-collecting funds as the books cost less than what was quoted in the list given to students. This resulted in excess cash of about S$21,600 in 2016.
AdvertisementAdvertisementEven though she knew there were excess funds, she did not tell anyone about this, said Mr Koh. Instead, she instructed her teachers to collect money according to the book list price for 2017 as well, and took the excess of about S$19,000.
She repeatedly admitted in police statements that she had taken the sum of S$39,000 to S$40,000. She told them she spent the money on her own expenses such as food and did not buy anything lavish with it.
In her testimony, she said that "every single year as teachers, we would buy stationery and teaching materials for the students using our own money".
"On her own admission, therefore, using the excess money to purchase stationery meant she would benefit, since she would no longer have to use her own money to purchase such stationeries and teaching materials," said Mr Koh.
Advertisement"This was in contrast to several of the teachers who testified that if the school did not provide the stationery they required, they would simply purchase their own using their own money."
She also admitted to Ministry of Education (MOE) investigators that it was wrong for her to use student monies to purchase stationery, but did it because it was troublesome to return the cash, said Mr Koh.
He argued that Maslinda's actions resulted in both wrongful loss - as the students did not receive refunds they were entitled to - and wrongful gain - as Maslinda used the money for her own purposes.
BACKGROUND OF THE CASE
The school's English department began producing its own resource packages in 2012, and the school's book shop, run by Madam Cheng Bee Lian, would print these.
Mdm Cheng testified that her long-standing practice was to state an estimated price of S$15 in the book list and she had told Maslinda about this, since all book lists had to be checked by their respective HODs.
Maslinda agreed on the estimated price and that the actual cost would eventually be reflected in the invoices given to her. Mdm Cheng testified that the final prices of the books had never exceeded the estimated prices of S$15 since she began this practice.
Maslinda would inform the teachers of how much they had to collect from their students, either in a WhatsApp chat group or in a department meeting, and she got them to collect the sums indicated in the book lists.
The alleged offences came to light when the school's lower-secondary head for English Jacqueline Chan asked Mdm Cheng on the first day of school in 2016 for a copy of the invoices so she or Maslinda could disseminate information to the teachers on how much to collect.
Mdm Cheng told her that she had already told Maslinda about this, and that Maslinda had told Mdm Cheng not to give the invoices to Ms Chan, but to hand them only to Maslinda.
Mdm Cheng testified in the trial that Maslinda had also told her not to hand the 2017 invoices to Ms Chan. However, Mdm Cheng eventually gave Ms Chan a copy of the invoices, and Ms Chan realised there was a discrepancy between the amounts being collected by the teachers and the amounts on the invoices.
She waited for two weeks to see if any further papers were to be produced, before flagging the issue to a vice-principal when they did not surface.
When the principal found out, he was shocked at such a large over-collection, and the issue was handed over to MOE investigators and the police.
Upon questioning by District Judge Ng Cheng Thiam, Mr Koh said the prosecution's case is that Maslinda misappropriated the entire sum of S$40,000.
Even if she had used some of the money on stationery for the students as she claimed, this is still misappropriation, said Mr Koh.
The other English teachers testified that none of them were told by Maslinda that there was excess money collected.
THE DEFENCE'S CASE
Defence lawyer Singa Retnam urged the judge to look at the facts of the case and the system in the school, whether there even was one.
He said it was for the prosecution to prove their case, and questioned if Maslinda's use of the money was dishonest if she did so in good faith for the students.
[h=3]READ: Woodgrove teacher trial: Principal did not know money was collected from students, says defence[/h]The defence's case was three-pronged: That Maslinda did not count or keep records of the cash handed to her and it was possible that some teachers had not paid her in full according to the book list, that the invoices before the court did not fully reflect the sums paid to the book shop, and that the excess money had been used for the benefit of the students with no dishonesty.
[h=3]READ: MOE investigators 'harassed' me: Teacher accused of taking students' money breaks down on stand[/h]Maslinda had testified about feeling "harassed" by MOE investigators and "threatened" by a police officer who said she would not be charged if she signed a statement and agreed to pay a stipulated amount. She later repaid the S$40,000 in full.
The judge asked the prosecutor what his stand was if all S$40,000 had been used on stationery, and referred to a case cited by the defence where the accused there used an entire sum for students in good faith and therefore no dishonesty was found.
Mr Koh responded that it would not be good faith if Maslinda used money collected from the Secondary 1 students for the upper secondary students.
"But you must look at it in the context of the school. She doesn't differentiate between the classes," replied Judge Ng.
Mr Koh replied that Maslinda was using it as a pooled sum, and she was the one unilaterally deciding on its use, with no question about what the students wanted or needed.
The judge said he needed time to review the evidence, based on the arguments raised on Friday. He adjourned the verdict to Jan 12.
If convicted of criminal breach of trust as a public servant, Maslinda can be jailed up to 10 years and fined for each charge.
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