Plastic Justice

The matter of wealthy plastic surgeon Woffles Wu "abetting" his employee, Kuan Kit Wah, to "provide false information to the police" so as to cover up two of Wu's speeding offences (in 2005 and 2006 respectively). To say that verdict and its explanation by the AGC does not sit well with me is a severe understatement.

Yesterday, in reaction to the AGC's statement, I wrote the following letter to the ST Forum:

I refer to the AGC's statement on the Woffles Wu case ("PP v Wu Tze Liang Woffles", AGC Press Release, 17 Jun 2012). To quote the ST report of that statement ("AGC releases statement on Woffles Wu case", 17 Jun 2012). The highlighted that it was Mr Kuan, not Dr Wu, who had given the false information to the police and that as well as the lack of payment or gratification to Mr Kuan were taken into consideration in the sentencing. This leads to important questions on the interpretation of information given to the traffic police.

After a speeding vehicle is detected, traffic police systems issue a summons to the owner of the vehicle. This creates a correspondence between the owner of the vehicle as well as the traffic police. In this case, the owner of the car would be Dr Wu. The Traffic Police should not be accepting information from anyone on the case other than the owner of the vehicle as they have no standing in the case. Therefore, information provided to the police on the case might be regarded as having been provided via Dr Wu. If this interpretation is correct, Dr Wu should be held responsible for both providing false information to the police and abetting Mr Kuan to assert the veracity of that false information. This would have implications for the proper sentence.

As a matter of public interest, the Traffic Police and AGC are requested to provide clarification on this question of interpretation.

This morning, I learnt some specifics of speeding summons. In summons issued to the owner of the vehicle, he/she is asked to declare whether he/she was the driver by checking or not checking off the following statement:

"I am the registered vehicle owner but not the driver of the said vehicle on the date, time and place of offence as stated in your letter. I hereby furnish the driver's particular(sic) as follows:"

Law Minister K Shanmugam has come out and provided an explanation for the verdict PP vs Wu case based on the explanation given by the AGC. He should have been aware, as a past Minister for Home Affairs and as a lawyer, that such a declaration by Wu would have had to be made and that it would mean that Wu indeed was providing information to the police on the identify of the driver. (Unless, of course, the law's interpretation of communications is vastly different.)

The convenient omission of this fact is highly suspect. Two alternatives are available: (i) the deliberate perversion of justice (perhaps to help a poor rich guy out) or (ii) incompetence (an "honest mistake"). (This is a real dichotomy and not a false one.) I will take the Minister at his word that it was not the case that Wu was spared a jail sentence because he’s rich.