SINGAPORE: A secondary school teacher on trial for allegedly misappropriating funds from students could have explained the amounts collected to the principal if he had asked her, the defence said on Friday (Dec 21).
Grilling the prosecution's first witness principal Chee Chit Yeng, defence counsel Singa Retnam asked if Mr Chee had called the accused, Maslinda Zainal, to clarify matters after he was alerted by another teacher to the alleged offence. Mr Chee said no.
AdvertisementWhen the other teacher, the school's lower-secondary head for English, Ms Jacqueline Chan, went to him, the facts were not "fully clear", Mr Chee said.
"I needed time to collect data, to collate, to really see if there’s something amiss, to decide on the next course of action,"
Maslinda, 44, stands accused of criminal breach of trust by misappropriating about S$40,000 meant for learning materials known as Excel packages. This allegedly happened between January 2016 and April 2017, while she was the Head of Department (HOD) for English.
[h=3]READ: Principal did not know money was collected from students, says defence[/h] AdvertisementAdvertisementMaslinda was to hand the money to the school bookshop, which would print the materials for the students. However, she allegedly over-collected S$40,000 from the students.
Mr Singa countered that Maslinda could have explained the figures, given that she was in charge.
When probed further, Mr Chee said: "When the issue arose, and I alerted (Ministry of Education) HQ, their advice is to not alert, or not to call in Madam Maslinda until everything is firm.”
When asked if he assumed Maslinda was guilty, Mr Chee said that he had his suspicions that money had been "kept aside" after he was alerted by Ms Chan. This was based on his calculations of the amount collected from the students, and the money that was paid to the bookshop, he explained.
The defence then turned its attention to how the amounts pertaining to the allegations were calculated, as the court previously heard that Mr Chee had tallied the amounts with the vice-principal.
[h=3]READ: Woodgrove teacher told MOE officer students' over-collected funds used on books, stationery[/h]Mr Singa referred to class lists, asserting that there were assumptions made in some of these calculations. This is because there were no signatures against names to show that the students had paid, he said.
To this, District Judge Ng Cheng Thiam asked: "If the collections are insufficient, how would they pay the bookshop?"
Mr Singa then said what happened will be explained, but nothing further was mentioned on this point.
Mr Singa also asked for Mr Chee's assessment of Ms Chan, which the prosecution objected to as an irrelevant question.
Mr Chee was released from the witness stand after about two hours. The trial will resume on Jan 28.
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