Police detail efforts to look into Raeesah Khan's false allegations, reject Pritam Singh's claim of no wrong done

SINGAPORE — The police have rejected Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh’s assertions that no wrong had been done to them by the false statement made by former party member Raeesah Khan in Parliament. They pointed out that “substantial amount of resources” and many police officers were involved to investigate the false claims.

After Ms Raeesah first told Parliament on Aug 3 about a sexual assault victim being handled insensitively at a police station, the police said that officers went through many records — including all records of visitors to police stations islandwide since Jan 1, 2017.

This was to identify Ms Raeesah’s alleged visits since she claimed that she had accompanied the victim to the station.

Two rounds of checks were conducted to ensure that the police “did not miss out any visit”, they said in a media statement on Monday (Dec 13).

“A substantial amount of resources was dedicated to this, because it was a statement made by (a Member of Parliament) in Parliament, and was taken seriously and at face value.” 

They added that officers also “considered the possibility” that Ms Raeesah had accompanied the victim without entering a station.

“As such, we also combed through more than 1,400 sexual assault and related cases from 2018 to 2021. We narrowed this list down to cases that appeared to somewhat match (Ms Raeesah’s) description in Parliament.

“The investigation officers in charge of these cases were all asked to check through their investigation records in detail. Other details were also checked with the officers.” 

On top of that, officers also checked through all the feedback received from members of the public in 2018 relating to sexual assault “but could not link any feedback to the case mentioned”.

“The police had dedicated significant resources to investigate into Ms Raeesah’s claims. Many police officers had been involved in the investigations into the false claims.”

Last Friday, Mr Singh gave oral evidence at a hearing by Parliament’s Committee of Privileges and talked about the impact that Ms Raeesah’s false statements had on the police.

The Leader of the Opposition said that the police would not be affected by her lie, adding that the police force was not a “broken-back” organisation.

The police on Monday said that “Mr Singh had minimised the possible impact of the false claims”.

“He said that no wrong had been done to the police by reason of the false claims made against the police, and questioned the amount of work police had done to investigate the false claims.”

They added that the “quantitative impact” of falsehoods — such as the one made by Ms Raeesah — “is not just in terms of the man-hours lost”.

“There were also delays in handling other matters and cases, with impact on members of the public — whose cases could have been handled faster had the time and resources not been wasted trying to investigate an incident that never happened.” 

The police stressed that the public trust in the force is integral to “our officers’ ability to carry out our mission effectively, to ensure the safety and security of our people”.

“If the public whom we serve do not trust us, it would be difficult to secure their cooperation, which is often critical to prevent, deter and detect crime and security incidents.

“False accusations against the police also have an impact on victims’ trust and confidence in the police, and may deter victims from coming forward to seek help,” they added.

The police warned that they take all allegations against their professionalism seriously.

“When allegations are made, we investigate carefully, and if they are true, we take steps to rectify the mistakes and minimise the possibility of them recurring.

“False anecdotes such as the one told by Ms Raeesah will cast doubt on and, over time, erode public trust in the Singapore Police Force.”

They also said: “Comments that downplay or dismiss the impact of false allegations against the police are discouraging. They can also affect the morale of our officers, who work hard every day to keep Singaporeans safe and secure.”