O-level cheating trial: Lawyer says tutor was threatened by police
Woman on trial for cheating says she was threatened, cops refutes her claims
While private tutor Fiona Poh Min was being investigated for cheating, she was "threatened and physically intimidated" by police officers, said her lawyer.
As a result, she "involuntarily" gave her statement to police investigation officer (IO) Eddie Ho after she was arrested, said lawyer Nicolas Tang yesterday.
This was refuted by the officer, who said he was not aware of the claims.
Fiona Poh, 31, a tutor from Zeus Education Centre in Tampines, is one of three alleged accomplices who aided six Chinese national students, aged between 17 and 20, taking their O-level exams in 2016.
She faces 27 cheating charges and one charge of instigating Chinese national student Chen Yi to leave Singapore to avoid being investigated by police.
Her two alleged accomplices are the centre's principal Poh Yuan Nie, 52, who is her aunt, and Chinese national Feng Riwen, 26.
They each face 27 cheating charges.
Another tutor from the centre, Singaporean Tan Jia Yan, 32, had admitted in April that she sat for the exam as a private candidate to provide a live feed to her alleged accomplices of the paper the students were sitting for.
Tan is currently out on bail of $20,000.
CONCEALED MOBILE PHONES
During their exams, the students smuggled concealed mobile phones, connected to the Bluetooth devices they wore under their clothes, into the exam halls. They also wore skin-coloured in-ear earphones.
Using the images beamed to them from Tan, Fiona Poh and Feng allegedly worked out the answers and, together with the principal, read out the answers to the students via the earphones.
This went on for five days from Oct 19, until one of the students, Chen Yi, was caught by an invigilator on Oct 24 at Tampines Secondary School.
Yesterday, Mr Tang said his client had been threatened by some of the police officers who came in contact with her after she was arrested.
Some of these threats, said Mr Tang, included officers telling Fiona Poh to cooperate during questioning so that she would not get hit.
In another instance, she was also told that if she continued to stay silent, "an accident might happen" to her aunt during investigations, added the lawyer.
In response, the IO said he was unaware of the claims as he was not present at those times.
The trial resumes today.
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