Aug 2, 2010
Suspended lawyer fined
<!-- by line --> By Elena Chong
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<!-- end left side bar --> <!-- story content : start --> A LAWYER was fined a total of $6,000 on Monday for forging two draft court judgments in favour of a friend and business partner. Dixon Ng Bock Hoh, 45, who stopped practice in 2008 and now does part-time teaching, admitted to two charges of making the court judgments, stamped 'Draft', with the intention of causing them to be believed that Mr Ng Swee How of JCV Consultants had obtained judgments against Nortel and Singapore Agro Agricultural in 2005. The judgments showed that Nortel and Singapore Agro had to pay $70,000 and $50,000 respectively to JCV.
They were purportedly signed by an unnamed Deputy Registrar. Mr Ng Swee How, managing director of R.J. Crocker Consultants, made a police report against Ng in November 2007, stating that Ng had given him two documents purporting to be court judgments of the Subordinate Courts for two matters. Ng, who is now serving a two-year suspension, had prepared the documents to help Mr Ng placate his wife and to conceal his financial status from her.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Hon Yi said the intention was to cause Mr Ng's wife to believe that there were ongoing actions for recovery of money, and that Mr Ng could expect payments should he win his claims, and also to save him from further abuse form his wife. Ng's lawyer Suresh Damodara said these were very unusual circumstances, which the Court of Three Judges acknowledged when they suspended him from practice in March.
The court had then found that Ng's conduct was intended solely as a 'wife placation exercise' as opposed to a deliberate attempt to deceive a client and/or the court in the context of actual court proceedings. Mr Suresh said his client had been through very tough times since 2007, including a divorce. Ng could have been jailed for up to two years and fined on each charge.
