A former police investigating officer was sentenced to 25 months' jail for forging witnesses' statements while he was tasked to investigate their cases.

After he left the police force, he lied during his application to become a lawyer.

Willijude Vimalraj Raymond Suras, 33, pleaded guilty to nine charges of forgery and one of intentionally giving false evidence in a judicial proceeding on Jun. 20, 2024.

Another 29 forgery charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.

Background

Forged 38 statements across 21 case files

Court documents revealed that Willijude was an investigating officer at Woodlands Police Division at the time of the offences.

His duties included recording statements from witnesses for criminal and coroner's cases and providing his supervisor with recommendations on the appropriate courses of actions.

His supervisor noticed that Willijude had been performing poorly and spoke to him on several occasions.

However, the talks did little to improve his performance, as he continued to submit his cases late and with inadequate investigations.

On Jan. 26, 2019, while reviewing Willijude's case files, his supervisor noticed that identical statements were recorded from two witnesses across the two unrelated cases.

She suspected that the statements were forged, and called the witnesses to check.

When asked whether Willijude had recorded statements from them, the witnesses replied that he had not.

Willijude was later questioned, to which he admitted to forging the witnesses' statements.

He admitted to forging 38 statements in total across 21 case files.

The affected cases were reinvestigated where necessary, where fresh statements were recorded from affected witnesses.

It was found that all case outcomes were not affected by the forgeries.

Would record inaccurate statements

On a separate occasion, Willijude was handed a case in November 2018 and failed to record statements from two witnesses involved despite being given a time extension.

The day before the extended deadline, he had interviewed one of the witnesses over the phone, taking down notes on a piece of paper.

He then crafted a statement based on his notes and forged the date, time and witnesses signature on it before presenting it to his supervisor.

As for the other witness, Willijude crafted a statement from scratch based on the other witness' testimony, and again wrote an inaccurate date, time and forged signature on it before submitting.

He would similarly forge other witness' statements on numerous other occasions.

Gave false evidence while applying for law job

Willjude resigned from the police force on Apr. 19 , 2019 while investigations for his forgery offences were ongoing.

Having received prior law training, he applied to be admitted as an advocate and solicitor.

When submitting a sworn affidavit dated Dec. 22, 2020, he gave false evidence by declaring that he was not under any investigation.

Was found to be suffering from adjustment and major depressive disorder

A senior consultant at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) diagnosed Willjude with adjustment disorder, which later evolved into major depressive disorder.

The doctor found a contributory link between Willjude’s mental condition and his forgery offences, but no contributory link between the condition and the offence of giving false evidence.

Such incidents could shake public confidence in the police: DPP

Deputy Public Prosecutor Grace Chua called for 30 months' imprisonment, saying that Willijude's actions undermined public confidence in the integrity of the investigative and legal processes.

"Such forgeries have the potential to severely compromise the integrity of investigations and shake the public confidence in the Singapore Police Force's duty to uphold law and order," she said.

However, defence lawyer Azri Imran Tan mentioned his Willijude's psychiatric condition as a mitigating factor, and asked for a lower sentence of between 12 and 17 months behind bars, TODAY reported.

For each count of forgery, Willjude could have been sentenced to a jail term of up to four years or fined, or both.

For giving false evidence in a judicial proceeding, he could have been jailed up to seven years and also been fined.

Top photo via Mothership