Cop charged with 40 counts of forgery in 8 coroner's inquiries
A policeman whose alleged acts of forgery led to eight reopened coroner's inquiries was hauled to a district court on Tuesday (June 21) to face multiple charges.
Kenny Cheong Chyuan Lih, 38, is now accused of 40 counts of forgery.
The station inspector, who has been suspended since Dec 27, 2018, allegedly forged statements from people linked to the eight cases.
They included eyewitnesses and family members of the dead.
All the affected inquiries involved fatal crashes. They had been handled by the then State Coroner Marvin Bay, and he had to look into the cases again.
The original inquiries had taken place between 2016 and 2018.
Cheong's alleged offences came to light following investigations by the police's Internal Affairs Office.
Seven cases were completed in the rehearings last year.
Six were heard on Oct 18 and Coroner Bay was satisfied that there had been no miscarriage of justice for them.
The seventh case was heard on Oct 19 and the court heard that Cheong's alleged acts of forgery had no impact on its findings.
The eighth reopened inquiry was concluded on April 1 this year.
For this case, Cheong is said to have forged the statements from two passengers who were in a car - a 12-year-old boy and his sister.
Among other things, Coroner Bay said in his findings that the contents of the boy's forged statements had no impact on the case.
This was because the child had "consistently asserted that he had not witnessed the collision".
In an unrelated case, lawyer Willjude Vimalraj Raymond Suras, 31, was also charged on Tuesday with multiple counts of forgery.
A search on the Ministry of Law's website reveals that he is a legal counsel at a firm called Advance Law.
The cases involving Cheong and Willjude have been adjourned to Aug 2.
For each count of forgery, an offender can be jailed for up to four years and fined.
Get The New Paper on your phone with the free TNP app. Download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store now