SINGAPORE: A former Head of Department meant for English at Woodgrove Secondary School will start her jail term for taking S$40, 1000 in student funds after losing an appeal on Friday (Aug 12).
A High Court judge dismissed the particular appeal by Maslinda Zainal against the girl conviction and maintained her sentence of one-and-a-half years’ jail .
Maslinda, forty seven, was found guilty of 2 counts of criminal breach of believe in as a public stalwart last year, after models of court proceedings where all twenty teachers in the The english language department testified.
She was in cost of collecting money that students posted to their teachers just for learning packages, yet over-collected about S$40, 000 between January 2016 and 04 2017.
The school’s lower-secondary head for English discovered the offences whenever she checked the amounts collected against the bookshop invoices and found discrepancies.
Maslinda admitted within police statements that she found this troublesome to return the to students, and said that she tried it to buy stationery and other items for them .
She afterwards testified that the police pressed her in order to confess. But Proper rights Chua Lee Ming found no cause to disagree with the trial judge’s finding that she gave the particular statements voluntarily.
In the attractiveness, Maslinda challenged the amount of student funds that she was found guilty of taking.
Justice Chua rejected her arguments, saying that the trial judge’s findings “cannot become said to be plainly wrong or against the weight of the evidence, conserve for a small reduction of S$12”.
He said that the total amount collected from the students was proven via their book lists, class lists and evidence from teachers, while the amount purchased the learning packages has been evidenced by the bookshop invoices.
Yet he allowed a reduction of S$12 from the amount gathered based on the evidence of the teacher who gathered the money from the students.