Jail for temple employee who misappropriated over $38,000
A temple employee who pocketed over $38,000 of its funds to buy groceries and dine in restaurants daily was sentenced to 10 months and two weeks’ jail.
Tham Lai Ying, 44, who was an administrative assistant at the Toa Payoh Seu Teck Sean Tong temple at the time of the offences, was handed the sentence on Aug 13.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Lim Li Ting said Tham’s offence caused a potential harm to public trust and confidence as the money was given by the public for charitable purposes.
Tham had pleaded guilty in July to one charge of criminal breach of trust as an employee. An unrelated charge under the Computer Misuse Act and a theft charge were taken into consideration during sentencing.
The court heard that Tham had been jailed in 2018 over theft offences, but details of the previous case were not revealed.
Tham started working for the temple in February 2022. She was in charge of collecting donations from the public and membership fees, and received a monthly salary of $1,600.
After she issued receipts for the money, she would keep the sums in a locked drawer. Once all the receipts in a receipt book were issued, she was supposed to hand over the book and the cash to the temple’s finance executive.
About one month into the job, Tham started to misappropriate the temple’s money. She took $38,799 in total – $37,799 in donations and $1,000 in membership fees.
DPP Lim said Tham stole the money out of greed, upon seeing the large sums of cash collected.
In an attempt to cover up the crime, Tham withheld some of the receipt books from the finance executive.
In May 2022, the finance executive noticed the missing books and alerted the temple’s secretary-general. An internal audit was conducted the next month.
When confronted by the secretary-general, Tham admitted to her misdeeds and was suspended.
DPP Lim said Tham agreed to repay the stolen money in instalments, but has not done so to date.
The prosecutor asked for Tham to be jailed for between 11 and 12 months, while Tham’s lawyer S.S. Dhillon asked for a jail term of nine months.
In his mitigation plea, Mr Dhillon wrote that his client is willing to return all the money, but needs more time as she and her husband are currently unemployed.
He added that Tham was remorseful: “(She) recognises that she had exercised poor judgment and acted out of sheer folly (and) would sincerely like an opportunity to make amends.”
In sentencing, District Judge Teoh Ai Lin said she considered Tham’s previous criminal record.
For criminal breach of trust as an employee, Tham could have been jailed for up to 15 years and fined.
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