SINGAPORE: A former Head of Department for English at Woodgrove Secondary School will begin her jail term for taking S$40,000 in student funds after losing an appeal on Friday (Aug 12).
A High Court judge dismissed the appeal by Maslinda Zainal against her conviction and upheld her sentence of one-and-a-half years' jail.
Maslinda, 47, was found guilty of two counts of criminal breach of trust as a public servant last year, after rounds of court hearings where all 20 teachers in the English department testified.
She was in charge of collecting money that students submitted to their teachers for learning packages, but over-collected about S$40,000 between January 2016 and April 2017.
The school's lower-secondary head for English discovered the offences when she checked the amounts collected against the bookshop invoices and found discrepancies.
Maslinda admitted in police statements that she found it troublesome to return the surplus to students, and said that she used it to buy stationery and other items for them.
She later testified that the police pressed her to confess. But Justice Chua Lee Ming found no reason to disagree with the trial judge's finding that she gave the statements voluntarily.
In the appeal, Maslinda challenged the amount of student funds that she was found guilty of taking.
Justice Chua rejected her arguments, saying that the trial judge's findings "cannot be said to be plainly wrong or against the weight of the evidence, save for a small reduction of S$12".
He said that the amount collected from the students was proven through their book lists, class lists and evidence from teachers, while the amount paid for the learning packages was evidenced by the bookshop invoices.
But he allowed a reduction of S$12 from the amount collected based on the evidence of a teacher who collected the money from the students.
More at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/sin...od-english-teacher-take-student-funds-2876551
