Last Sunday, when many of us headed to YouTube to get our daily dose of cute cat videos, we were pleasantly surprised to see Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh’s hearing before the Committee of Privileges.
With all the allegations flung at Mr Singh and the Worker’s Party (WP), this was surely going to be an entertaining and informative watch.
But then we found out that it was around nine hours long, and decided to watch cute cat videos instead.
For those who didn’t have nine hours to spare, you can read this article which details the key takeaways.
One of the more interesting exchanges between Mr Singh and Culture, Community and Youth Minister Edwin Tong was over the police’s investigations into former MP Raeesah Khan’s untrue anecdote.
Here’s what they said:
Questioned Amount of Resources Police Put into Investigations
As you know, the entire point of this hearing was to ascertain the chain of events that led to Ms Khan repeating her untruth in parliament.
Ms Khan claimed she had accompanied a sexual assault victim to the police station, but that she came out crying due to troubling comments the officer had made about her dressing and drinking.
Ms Khan later confessed that this was untrue.
Before her confession, however, the police revealed that they had combed through their files to look for the case she mentioned, but couldn’t find anything.
This brings us to this hearing.
When asked if the false anecdote would have affected the police’s work, Mr Singh said no.
“The police is not some broken-back organisation… I solemnly and sincerely believe if you speak to any senior police officer worth his salt, he or she will tell you that in the course of investigations there can be a number of situations where certain questions are put to a witness which are uncomfortable for that person,” he elaborated.
In response, Mr Tong said that police time had been wasted as they had been “chasing their tails for three months”.
But Mr Singh objected to this, noting that Minister of State for Home Affairs Desmond Tan had earlier said the police could not find the case Ms Khan had described.
“So what work was actually done? I am not aware. I am not saying no work was done, obviously work must have been done, done to check,” the WP chief added.
Well, now we have an answer to that question, straight from the horse’s mouth.
Police Said They Combed Through 1,400 Cases to Find Raeesah Khan’s ‘Case’
The police said they dedicated a “substantial amount of resources” to their investigations, as the claim was made by an MP.
They added that they also considered that Ms Khan had indeed accompanied a sexual assault victim, but without entering the police station in the end.
In their investigations, they scoured more than 1,400 sexual assault and related cases from 2018 to 2021, before narrowing it down to cases that fit Ms Khan’s description.
“The investigation officers in charge of these cases were all asked to check through their investigation records in detail. Other details were also checked with the officers,” they added.
“Police officers also checked through all the feedback received from members of the public in 2018, relating to sexual assault, but could not link any feedback to the case mentioned by Ms Khan.”
They said that in addition to the wasted time, there were also delays in handling other matters and cases, which had an impact on members of the public.
The reason the police took Ms Khan’s allegation seriously, of course, is that it was a direct attack on their integrity, which could greatly affect public perception.
“If the public whom we serve do not trust us, it would be difficult to secure their cooperation, which is often critical to prevent, deter and detect crime and security incidents,” they said.
“The police therefore take all allegations against our professionalism seriously. When allegations are made, we investigate carefully, and if they are true, we take steps to rectify the mistakes, and minimise the possibility of them recurring.”
We’re in the midst of working on a video about Pritam Singh’s hearing. In the meantime, you can watch this video for a summary of Vice-Chair Faisal Manap’s hearing:
Read Also:
- 12 Facts to Know From the New Oral Evidence Given by Pritam Singh
- 14 Facts to Know From the New Oral Evidence Given by WP Vice-Chair Faisal Manap
Featured Image: Dr David Sing/shutterstock.com
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