Former HOD at Woodgrove Secondary jailed 1.5 years for pocketing S$40,000 of students’ funds

SINGAPORE — A former head of department at Woodgrove Secondary School was sentenced to one-and-a-half years’ jail on Friday (March 5), after she was found guilty of misappropriating S$40,000 that students had forked out for learning materials.

Maslinda Zainal, 46, was convicted of two counts of criminal breach of trust as a public servant following a trial.

Her lawyer Singa Retnam from IRB Law said that she will file an appeal against the conviction and sentence. District Judge Ng Cheng Thiam allowed her to remain out on bail of S$30,000 pending the appeal.

Maslinda had been head of English at Woodgrove Secondary — located along Woodlands Avenue 6 — from 2006 up until her arrest in 2017, and has been suspended from duty since then. She earned a gross monthly salary of S$8,800 at the time.

She was in charge of collecting money that students had given to their English teachers for the learning materials, known as “Excel packages”. She also liaised with the bookstore that printed the packages.

She had been a teacher for about 20 years, and had a master’s degree in education. As department head, seven to eight teachers reported directly to her.

Prosecutors earlier called for two years’ jail, saying she was “entrusted with substantial responsibility” that she had betrayed and “abused for her own benefit”.

“The real gravamen of the accused’s offence is not simply the significant financial harm caused. Public confidence in the public service — and particularly in the teaching service — will inevitably suffer as a result of the accused’s actions,” Deputy Public Prosecutors David Koh and Stephanie Chew told the court.

For each charge of criminal breach of trust as a public servant, Maslinda could have been jailed up to 10 years and fined.

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE TRIAL

During her trial in the State Courts, Maslinda denied pocketing the cash and said she did not keep records of it as nobody told her she needed to.

Her lawyers argued that she did not count or keep records of the cash handed to her and it was possible that some teachers had not paid her in full according to the book list.

They also said that the invoices before the court did not fully reflect the sums paid to the bookshop and that the excess money had been used for the benefit of the students with no dishonesty.

But earlier, in statements given to the police, Maslinda had admitted to taking the money and spending it on her own expenses, such as food. 

She said she did not buy anything lavish and also used part of the sum to buy stationery and other items for the students.

Over the course of the trial, she alleged that she had been harassed by investigators and that her statements were made under duress.

The offences came to light when the school's lower-secondary English head, Ms Jacqueline Chan, asked the bookshop seller on the first day of school in 2016 for a copy of the invoices for the books.

The seller responded that Maslinda had told her to give the invoices only to Maslinda and not to hand them to Ms Chan.

When Ms Chan eventually obtained a copy of the invoices, she realised there was a discrepancy between the amounts being collected by the teachers and the amounts on the invoices.

She later flagged the issue to a vice-principal and the school’s principal was shocked to discover what had happened. 

Investigators from the Ministry of Education, and later the police, were called in and Maslinda was cuffed and taken away from school grounds.

All 20 teachers in the school's English department testified in court during the course of the trial, and they said Maslinda did not tell them about the excess money being collected.