10 weeks’ jail for former ICA officer who falsely accused ex-boss of taking indecent photos in toilet

SINGAPORE — An officer who was with the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) was jailed 10 weeks on Monday (June 8) for falsely alleging that his former supervisor had taken photographs of another man’s private parts in a public toilet.

When Thomas Foo Jian Yao, 30, pleaded guilty in March to one charge of giving false information to a public servant, the court heard that he did it because he was unhappy with his former supervisor for discrediting him in front of his new supervisor.

The supervisor, a 46-year-old superintendent, had raised matters to Foo’s new boss instead of resolving them directly with him.

Foo, who then held the rank of assistant superintendent, hatched a plan to make a false complaint to the senior management of ICA by using a fake name, going to great lengths to avoid getting caught, such as buying a mobile phone in Thailand and using it to set up an email address.

He resigned from ICA in February after being suspended without pay ⁠on Dec 5 last year.

THE CASE

On Aug 8, 2019, Foo sent his fake complaint via email while he was on holiday in Phuket, Thailand.

In the email, he pretended to be a counsellor named “Joseph” who apparently witnessed the superintendent pointing his phone camera at another person’s private parts in a toilet at Seah Im Food Centre — located opposite HarbourFront Centre.

The email, which contained an image attachment of the superintendent's face, further stated that he had boarded an ICA shuttle bus. It then stated: “I am not going to blow things up. I just want this person, if really he took such photos, to internally receive some counselling and advice.”

The email was addressed to nine members of the ICA senior management, including ICA commissioner Marvin Sim, leading to an ICA assistant commissioner filing a police report on Aug 8.

The superintendent’s office and home were raided that same day, his personal mobile phone was seized and his passport was impounded.

However, the police eventually traced the email back to Foo after investigations revealed that the file information of the photograph enclosed in the email was traced to Phuket, where he was.

Foo was confirmed as the sender when his whereabouts became known after he tapped a public Wi-Fi network at Century Square Mall in Tampines about two weeks later. He was then sending an email to the police who asked him to assist in the investigations regarding the case. 

In that email to the police, Foo said that he is not sure if the superintendent had indeed taken any photograph and “did not want the matter to blow up”. He also said that he did not have time to go down to a police station for an interview.

Police cameras and closed-circuit camera footage were used to help the police in identifying Foo.

For giving false information to a public servant, he could have been jailed up to one year, fined up to S$5,000, or both.

In seeking a 12-week jail sentence for Foo in March, Deputy Public Prosecutor Emily Koh said that Foo had wasted investigative resources and acted in a “clearly vindictive” manner, causing significant harm to the victim and his family.

His lawyer, Mr Raphael Louis, asked for a short detention order, a community-based sentence that would not give Foo a criminal record upon his release.

Mr Louis said then: “His biggest mistake was not controlling his emotions which led him to commit these offences. He didn’t do it for financial gain or to protect anyone.”