SINGAPORE: A woman who did not want to lend money to her colleague decided to make up a story that she was robbed and called the police to make a detailed report.
Her actions wasted police resources, with officers searching for suspects and reviewing police camera footage.
Joyce Tan Hwee Leng, 35, was fined S$2,000 (US$1,460) by a district court on Thursday (Sep 28) for one count of providing false information to a public servant.
The court heard that Tan worked as a server at a restaurant where the executive chef asked to borrow S$6,700 from her in March.
Tan did not want to lend him the money but agreed as she wanted to maintain a good working relationship with him.
On Mar 16, she concocted an account of how she had left home with S$6,700 in her bag. She told the police that two men approached her at the smoking point of a Yishun Housing Board block and took the money after pointing a small knife at her.
She described to the police in detail the men’s estimated age, what they were wearing and that they asked her for cigarettes.
Tan also said that when she told the men she did not have enough cigarettes, one of them pointed a penknife at her demanding money. She claimed she gave the pair her wallet, but they also took her bag containing the S$6,700.
Tan was crying and shivering when two police officers interviewed her at the location.
The court heard that Tan did not, in fact, have the S$6,700 to lend.
CONSEQUENCES OF HER ACTIONS
As a result of the false information she gave, officers reviewed police camera footage at the surrounding blocks to check for suspicious characters that matched her description.
Officers were deployed across parts of Yishun to find the men Tan described, and other police officers on duty were alerted to look out for the described suspects.
Meanwhile, Tan was giving inconsistent accounts to the police. She eventually broke down on further questioning and said she had lied because she did not want to lend the chef the money and wanted to come up with an excuse.
The prosecutor sought a fine of S$1,000 to S$2,000, saying that while public resources were wasted, there was no elaborate scheme, and Tan admitted to her lies about three hours after making the report.
Tan said nothing in mitigation except that she hoped the case would not affect her future.
The judge told her that he had compared her case against a similar one, which was a worse case, and taken into account that she was a first-time offender.
For giving false information to a public servant, she could have been jailed for up to two years, fined, or both.