SINGAPORE: A High Court judge on Thursday (Jan 26) slammed the “entitled behaviour” of a man who had stolen about S$52,000 from his eczema-stricken girlfriend, saying he showed no remorse for his offences.
Marcus Kong Wei Keong will now have to serve his jail term of about one year and seven months after Justice Vincent Hoong dismissed his appeal against his conviction and sentence.
Kong, now 35, had moved into his girlfriend’s place in May 2015 to care for her when she was unable to work due to her severe skin condition.
He then secretly took her credit and bank cards over two months, using them to make multiple cash withdrawals and online fund transfers.
The Singaporean was found guilty of 53 charges — including theft, giving false information about an offence, and gaining access to computer material without authorisation — last year following a State Courts trial that began in October 2019.
WHAT HAPPENED
During his trial, the court heard testimony from his girlfriend, who worked as a teacher, that she spent most of her days resting in bed due to her condition. It was so severe that her whole body turned red, her leg swelled and she constantly ran a fever.
She testified that she did not consent to Kong making the withdrawals and online fund transfers.
The court further heard at the time that Kong’s parents did not know that he was in Singapore at that time because he was supposed to be studying at the University of Queensland in Australia.
His parents found out that he had gone behind their backs to remain in Singapore instead of studying overseas only when the couple broke up in February 2016.
She testified that on the night of the break-up, a loan shark called her demanding payment for an overdue loan Kong had taken.
She became sure then that he was also behind a series of suspected fraudulent transactions she discovered from August 2015. She was trying to pay for a skin product online and two of her credit cards could not be used.
She also told the court that Kong’s actions affected her not only financially but emotionally.
When his offences were discovered and investigations began, Kong lodged a police report himself, referring to his girlfriend’s police report and telling a police officer then that he had no idea how money was being transferred from her account to his.
He lied that these transactions were done without his knowledge.
However, in subsequent police statements in September 2016, he confessed that he had taken his girlfriend’s credit cards from her wallet when she was sleeping. He knew her personal identification number for the cards because there were “bank letters lying around”.
CLAIMED TO HAVE “AGREEMENT” WITH VICTIM
In his High Court appeal, Kong reiterated his defence at trial that he had an agreement with the victim where she allowed him to handle her finances by using her credit and bank cards.
His girlfriend denied this. Justice Hoong also rejected the assertion, noting his admission to the police and his own psychiatrist that he had used the victim’s credit cards without her permission more than once.
Justice Hoong added that none of Kong’s medical reports backed up his claim that his depressive state would have made him more susceptible to being manipulated by his girlfriend.
In terms of payments that his mother made to the victim, the judge said these were restitution for Kong’s offences, not because of a demand of money from the victim or for appreciation for housing Kong.
His mother had told the victim over WhatsApp that her “only hope is to be able to make up to u one day”.
Justice Hoong also found the jail sentence imposed to be appropriate, adding that the district court judge could even have put more weight on Kong’s lack of remorse.
“The appellant’s actions in this regard are a sideshow of one self-serving action after another,” said the judge. These actions included Kong’s refusal to come clean and his failure to file his medical reports within the deadlines given by the court.
“Even in his petition of appeal, unaccompanied by any written submissions, the appellant now tries to suggest that it was the victim who could have manipulated him,” Justice Hoong added.
“This smokescreen by the appellant is an attempt to run from the mirror of his own manipulation of others – of his then-girlfriend, of the police, of the court, and even of his own parents, who spent their own money to attempt to make up for the appellant’s misdeeds.
“In my view, an enhancement to the appellant’s sentence on these grounds by the (district court judge) would not have been manifestly excessive.”
Justice Hoong also noted that Kong continued showing his “cavalier attitude towards others” in his appeal.
Kong did not get a lawyer for several months after filing his appeal and did not ask for an adjournment from the court. He also did not prepare his own submissions and did not bring to court the documents that had been personally served to him.
“The appellant instead expected to stroll into court and immediately obtain an adjournment based on his bald assertion that he could accomplish in the next week what he could not accomplish over the past seven months since May 2022,” Justice Hoong said.
“This entitled behaviour by the appellant rings of disrespect to others and strengthens my finding that the appellant has shown no remorse for his offences.”
For each theft offence, Kong could have been jailed for up to three years or fined, or both.