Chitchat What do these teachers / HODs / Principals have in common as criminals?

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DPP asks for at least 2 years' jail for former head of department who misappropriated over $40k

Maslinda Zainal was found guilty of two counts of criminal breach of trust on Jan 11.ST PHOTO: KELVIN CHNG

Shaffiq Alkhatib
Court Correspondent

• PUBLISHED
  3 HOURS AGO

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SINGAPORE - The prosecution has argued for the former head of department (HOD) of English and literature at Woodgrove Secondary School to be jailed at least two years for misappropriating more than $40,000.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Stephanie Chew told a district court on Wednesday (Feb 24) that Maslinda Zainal, now 46, had abused the trust placed in her and that her offences were "motivated by greed".
Appointed HOD in 2006, four years after joining the school, Maslinda had kept for herself a portion of the monies students gave to their English teachers for learning materials known as Excel packages.
She was found guilty of two counts of criminal breach of trust on Jan 11.
Her lawyer, Mr Singa Retnam, on Wednesday pleaded for his client to be given a sentence that is not "crushing", describing Maslinda as an outstanding teacher who had received awards, including one for excellent service in 2011.
As HOD, Maslinda was tasked to collect the money students gave to their English teachers. She also liaised with the bookstore that printed the resource packages.

"The accused was the only one who knew that an excess of monies had been collected from the students - and that what the bookstore was charging was far less than the amounts collected from the students," deputy public prosecutors Chew and David Koh had said during the trial last month.
She was entrusted with nearly $35,000 in 2016 and more than $36,000 the following year.

However, Maslinda paid Madam Cheng Bee Lian, who ran the school bookshop, about $13,000 in 2016 and $17,000 in 2017, the sums stated in the invoices.
The teacher, who has been suspended by her school, then misappropriated the remaining sum, taking more than $21,000 in 2016 and almost $20,000 in 2017.
Her offences came to light when a subject head at the school, Madam Jacqueline Chan, found discrepancies between the amounts collected by the English department and the sums paid in the bookshop's invoice.

Madam Chan then asked Madam Cheng to provide her with a copy of the invoices.
Although the bookshop operator was initially reluctant, saying Maslinda had told her not to hand them over to Madam Chan, she eventually did.
The school's vice-principals were alerted and the matter was escalated to the principal. After an investigation, the police were contacted on April 17, 2017, and Maslinda was a arrested later that day.
She will be sentenced on March 5.

 

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Ex-principal of childcare centre sentenced to 1 year, 10 months' jail after misappropriating over $200,000

Salina Abd Samat was the principal of Learning Vision Sunshine Place.ST PHOTO: KELVIN CHNG

Dominic Low

• PUBLISHED
  JUN 15, 2020, 3:03 PM SGT

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SINGAPORE - A former principal of a childcare centre who misappropriated more than $200,000 from it was sentenced to one year and 10 months' jail on Monday (June 15).

Salina Abd Samat, 38, pleaded guilty to two counts of criminal breach of trust as an employee , which relate to two periods - one in 2015 and the other in 2017 - for misappropriating $120,199.40 in total.

Two other similar charges were taken into consideration by District Judge Teoh Ai Lin during sentencing.
Salina was the principal of Learning Vision Sunshine Place, a childcare centre at Block 475 Choa Chu Kang Avenue 3, when she committed the offences. She has since stopped working for Learning Vision @ Work, the company which operates the childcare centre.

As principal , Salina's responsibilities include registering new enrolments of children into the company's financial database system.
She was also responsible for collecting money for various fees, such as those for the children's registration and class photography, on behalf of the company.


However, Salina would pocket the cash paid for such fees and use them to pay her bills and for personal expenses instead.
The court heard that she misappropriated a total of $218,552.10, including fees for 79 children, between August 2014 and June 2017.
The amount also included petty cash, such as $477 intended as reimbursement to the other teachers of the childcare centre for the expenses they had incurred, which she took some time between January 2017 and July 2017.

To date, no restitution has been made to the company, although it has since been compensated by its insurance company.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Teo Yu Chou said that Salina took steps to avoid detection by delaying or failing to register into the company's database system newly enrolled children to the centre whose fees she had collected from in cash.

"As the accused had allowed these children to attend classes, there was no suspicion raised among the parents that the accused had misappropriated the cash monies for her own personal use," he said.

The DPP said the company was not aware that the children were not properly enrolled as their particulars were not entered into the system.
It was later discovered through an audit in June 2017 that 12 children were physically attending classes at the centre, but did not have their particulars registered in the company's system.

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The company's director, Mr Phang Chin Sian, lodged a police report the following month.
In mitigation, Salina's lawyer, Mr Zamiq Azmeer Borhanudin, told the court that his client was experiencing financial difficulties when she committed the offences.
For each charge of committing criminal breach of trust as an employee, Salina could have been jailed for up to 15 years and fined.

 

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Primary school employee jailed for misappropriating over $41k of pupils' money

Shaffiq Alkhatib
Court Correspondent

• UPDATED
  APR 1, 2019, 11:03 PM

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SINGAPORE - A primary school customer service officer misappropriated more than $41,000 of the money paid by pupils for items such as school trips and co-curricular activities (CCA).

Siti Rafeah Abd Hamid, 44, was working at Frontier Primary School in Jurong West when she committed the offences, which came to light when the school realised it could not pay a CCA vendor due to insufficient funds.

The mother-of-five was jailed for four months on Monday (April 1) after she pleaded guilty to one count of criminal breach of trust involving more than $36,000.
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A second similar charge involving $4,800 was taken into consideration during sentencing.


The court heard that Siti joined the school in January 2012.
As part of her job scope between January and November 2017, she was entrusted with monies for various activities such as school trips and CCA activities.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Deborah Lee said: "These monies were collected by teachers from students and handed over to the accused.
"The accused was supposed to record these monies in the school system before handing the monies over to the operation manager. The operation manager would then deposit the monies into the school's bank account."

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Teacher allegedly misappropriated about $40,000 meant for students' learning materials
In July last year, the school realised that it could not pay a CCA vendor, and internal investigations later revealed that Siti did not hand over more than $36,000 to the operation manager.

The DPP added: "The accused admitted that she dishonestly misappropriated the said sum by using them for her own expenses. The accused also did not record the said sum in the school system to avoid detection."

The school's vice-principal alerted the police on July 27 last year.
Siti has since made full restitution, the court heard.

The Ministry of Education (MOE) said she is currently on no-pay leave and it will commence disciplinary process accordingly.
The MOE added that it takes a serious view of staff misconduct and will not hesitate to take disciplinary action against those who fail to adhere to its standards of conduct and discipline, including dismissal from service.

It also said it has been taking steps to tighten the accountability of billing and collections through an MOE billing system for schools.
In asking for a four-month jail term, DPP Lee told District Judge Toh Yung Cheong that Siti had committed the offences for over a year and that the amount involved was significant.

Defence lawyer T. M. Sinnadurai said this was Siti's first brush with the law.
The lawyer also said she had fully cooperated with the authorities.
For criminal breach of trust, she could have been jailed for up to seven years and fined.

 

[batman1]

MONEY no enough .

 

[sweetiepie]

KNN my uncle knows this is not leemited to gov hod and schools KNN many criminals also operated in pte educational centers all leelated to money money money KNN some misappropriated directlee from the entity while some sells fake certificates KNN informatics and a few accounting academy KNN some were leeported while some kept low profile and the criminals were simply asked to leesign to maintain the image of the academy KNN my uncle think becas education money is easy to earn becas too many tam chia ter nao people in sg KNN

 

[zhihau]

They are not paid enough, confirm.

 

[gingerlyn]

Malay

 

[gingerlyn]

Should send them to memorise Quran

 

[laksaboy]

Some educators steal money, other educators fuck schoolkids.

Moulding the future of our nation.