SINGAPORE — Former Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) Commissioner Peter Lim Sin Pang was yesterday convicted of corruptly obtaining oral sex from former Nimrod Engineering General Manager Angie Pang Chor Mui.

The prosecution will make its sentencing submission on Friday.

Lim faces a fine not exceeding S$100,000 or a jail term not exceeding five years, or both.

His ordeal is not over: He faces nine other similar corruption charges which the prosecution will decide on how to proceed.

Delivering her verdict for more than an hour on the high-profile sex-for-contracts case, District Judge Hamidah Ibrahim ruled that the pair was not in an intimate relationship — despite Lim’s claims to the contrary — and that it was the former high-ranking civil servant who initiated the sexual encounter.

The judge also had harsh words for Lim, 52, saying he was “evasive” and that he had told “lies” to the court. Lim had his head bowed and sighed occasionally as the verdict was being read.

It was “bizarre and downright ridiculous” for a senior civil servant to claim he did not know that there was a conflict of interest when he obtained oral sex from Ms Pang, 49, the judge said.

“Any high ranking civil servant of 25 years’ worth of public service ought to have known” that if he had obtained oral sex with a representative of a vendor - and in this case, a General Manager no less - and knowing subsequently that the vendor was involved in a procurement process, he would have breached the instruction manual for civil servants and was in “an obvious conflict of interest situation”, the judge said. “If he did not know that, then the accused has certainly made a wrong career choice for the last 25 years.”

On May 2, 2010, Lim had oral sex with Ms Pang at the Stadium Walk carpark. At the time, Ms Pang’s company was a vendor for the SCDF.

The judge said that any high-ranking civil servant ought to have known

Lim’s statements were also “fraught with inconsistencies” and was not a credible “a witness or witness of truth”, the judge said: “His credit has been impeached, lies have been told, he was evasive and changes his positions too often without an acceptable explanation.”

She said that the relationship between Lim and Ms Pang was “rather superficial”. Their interaction was “limited” as they had only met up for three or four hour-long lunches between 2009 and 2010, after a nine year hiatus in their friendship. They also sent text messages to each other once in two weeks or once a month. The judge noted that Lim did not even know that Nimrod’s managing director Tamil Selvan was Ms Pang’s boyfriend.

There was also no effort made to meet each other after the oral sex encounter, she said. It is “hard to believe” that they were as “close as they claim to be”, she added.

Lim had claimed that Ms Pang was the one who initiated oral sex and that he “caved in” because she “pitifully begged him for sex” at one of their lunch appointments.

But the judge said: “If I were to accept his explanations, it would appear as if the accused was practically like a lamb led to the slaughter by (Ms Pang) and he was so magnanimous when he made the supreme sacrifice by allowing a woman, whom he was never physically attracted to, to give him a fellatio.”

Lim had also claimed that he did not know that he was in a conflict of interest situation even when he made a call to Ms Pang on March 17, 2011 to enquire if Nimrod carried radiation portal monitors before SCDF put up a tender on April 6 that year.

While Lim did not provide details of any tender or specifications, the information did give Nimrod an “advantage”, the judge ruled.

“A call from the highest-ranking person in SCDF, none other than the Commissioner himself would never be taken lightly. It was as good as telling someone that the SCDF would be in the market for such products,” the judge said. She noted that under the charge which Lim was facing, it was not necessary to prove that he had shown favour to Nimrod as a consequence of obtaining oral sex from Ms Pang.

The judge said that although Ms Pang gave inconsistent testimonies, she came across as a witness who was “doing her level best to recall or remember”.

Hence, this had “little adverse impact” on her credibility, the judge added.

Speaking to reporters outside the courtroom, defence lawyers Hamidul Haq and K Bala Chandran said that the verdict was “not something that’s the best of outcomes but certainly we are going to study it”.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Home Affairs said that its civil service disciplinary proceedings against Lim - which began in late-January last year - on charges serious personal misconduct would “continue to be held in abeyance until a final outcome in the criminal proceedings”. The proceedings were suspended after Lim was charged.

The ministry stressed that it “expects its officers, regardless of position or seniority, to uphold the highest standards of duty and integrity at all times”.