DAVINDER SINGH PLACES IO UNDER CROSSHAIRS
On Monday afternoon, Lum’s lead lawyer Senior Counsel Davinder Singh questioned the prosecution’s first witness about the manner in which she had taken statements from Lum.
In response to his questioning, lead investigating officer Wei Maojun, Jacqueline from the Commerical Affairs Department (CAD) shared her background: She studied accountancy at Nanyang Technological University before joining PricewaterhouseCoopers as an audit associate.
She then joined the CAD in 2014.
“So you have never been in the industry? In the market, in listed companies?” asked Mr Singh.
“Yes,” said Ms Wei.
She added: “I may not have had experience in the corporate world, but in my experience as an investigator … we do (understand) the (SGX) listing rules. Besides that, we did seek views from regulators, experts and the prosecution before … (framing) the charges,” she said.
She had agreed earlier to Mr Singh’s suggestion that she had been the one who came up with what was defined as the omitted information in the charges faced by Lum.
Initially, she said she approached a securities expert, Mr Kevin Gin, before the investigations into the case commenced.
She agreed that she had provided Mr Gin with a document called “terms of reference”, where she asked Mr Gin to assume certain facts concerning the allegedly omitted information in forming his expert opinion.
Mr Singh questioned Ms Wei on when she provided the terms of reference to Mr Gin, but she said she could not remember.
“You see it’s interesting that you say that about events that took place just two to three years ago. You can’t remember, right?” said Mr Singh.
“You were the IO in charge of this investigation. And getting expert opinion was an important part of this investigation.”
The judge intervened and said it would not be fair to ask Ms Wei on the stand like that to test her memory, asking if she could look at some notes or her diary.
Mr Singh then showed evidence to Ms Wei that the terms of reference had been given to Mr Gin in December 2023.
“It would therefore appear, Ms Wei, that my client was charged in November 2022 about omitting the information, even before you obtained Mr Gin’s expert report in relation to the implications of the omission of the information, correct?” asked the seasoned lawyer.
Ms Wei agreed.
“Therefore, I suggest to you that what happened was that, having come to the view of what the information was, which should have been included but was omitted, you then set about to get an expert to back you up on that, right?” asked Mr Singh.
He also put it to Ms Wei that when Lum was charged, Ms Wei “did not even have Mr Gin’s expert view on the implications of the omission of the information”.
Ms Wei disagreed and said the investigators had engaged Mr Gin and sought his view even before investigations commenced.
However, she later agreed with Mr Singh when he said it was she who came up with the list of information that should have been disclosed and not Mr Gin.
Mr Singh then repeatedly asked Ms Wei about specific questions she had asked Lum during her statement taking. He pointed out that Lum had stated many times that she simply could not recall because it had been nine or 10 years ago.
At one point, Mr Singh parsed an answer by Lum in a police statement, saying that Lum was saying it happened 10 years ago and that she could not recall primarily because of the time gap.
Ms Wei replied: “Possibly.”
“Not possibly, primarily,” said Mr Singh. “You had trouble with two years ago.”
Ms Wei responded that it was not for her to speculate how Lum felt.
