R. v. MARIASUSAI ANDREWS

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL

1996, No 545
(Criminal)

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J U D G M E N T

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Liu, J.A.:

1. The Applicant stood charged with 9 offences in the District Court. Suffice it to say from the 1st to the 8th charges, he was accused of having signed forms and provided proof to aid and facilitate Filipino domestic workers in their bogus applications to the Immigration Department. The 9th charge involved a statement given by the applicant to enable another Filipino domestic helper to approach the Immigration Department for official assent. The Applicant accepted payments for the role he played.

2. All the domestic helpers involved gave evidence at the trial of the Applicant, in which he was convicted. He was sentenced to 2 1/2 years each, on all the 9 charges and the judge ordered his sentences to run concurrently. He is now serving a total term of 2 1/2 years. The Applicant feels aggrieved and he seeks leave to appeal against his convictions.

3. In his home-made grounds of appeal, he complains that the judge had given less than due weight to the immunity granted to the Filipino domestic helpers. The Applicant is also dissatisfied with the conclusions reached by the judge and he maintains that in fact the Filipino domestic helpers had all been working for him. Today, he further explains that in each case it was the undertaking of part time work and that at the material time he was unaware of his maids' part-time work and the unlawfulness of unauthorised part-time work. The grounds of appeal also challenged the lack of evidence, coming from any of the Filipino domestic helpers, for establishing that they had in fact worked for some particular employers elsewhere. The Applicant is not at all content with the assertion of the Filipino domestic helpers that they had all lost their memory of the illicit employment. He also seeks to make much of the fact that the prosecution had called no witnesses other than the Filipino domestic helpers to prove their alleged employment elsewhere. No receipts were, so he further complains, produced to evidence such work elsewhere.

4. The co-defendant of the Applicant had given evidence to the effect that the Applicant was innocent. The Applicant elected to give no evidence himself but he takes the view that the judge "failed to obtain proper and fair clarification" of this statement from his co-defendant. The Applicant is also unhappy with the references made by the judge to events in a sequence and terms of his own choosing in sentencing him. For all this, it is contended by the Applicant that the verdicts were highly suspect, particularly when the Filipino domestic helpers were all, in his word, pressurised by the prosecution.

5. The domestic helpers testified at the trial. Their evidence was tested by cross-examination. The judge was satisfied and found it safe to rely on the evidence of each of these witnesses. The judge explained in his Reasons for Verdict that he could well understand the reluctance of these witnesses to divulge details of their illicit employment or incriminate those who had hired them. As to the evidence of the 2nd Defendant, the co-defendant of the Applicant, her case was "that her role in introducing those whom she did introduce to the [Applicant] was innocent and that any employment contract entered into was genuine". The judge rejected her evidence. The judge continued: "It is just not remotely possible that the [Applicant] would employ as many maids as he claimed. Further, the 2nd Defendant could not possibly have imagined that the [Applicant] was genuinely employing them". Having given weight to the evidence given by the Filipino domestic helpers and paid regard to the matters I have set out earlier, the judge came to the conclusion that there was evidence to found the charges against the Applicant. Consequently, he found the Applicant guilty as charged.

6. We have carefully gone through the entire file and the papers placed before each of us in this application. We have come to the conclusion that none of the findings of the judge could be faulted. There is no substance in any of the home-made grounds submitted by the Applicant. We also find nothing in what he says today. We cannot allow the application. We have also made enquiry from Miss. Chan appearing for the Crown as to whether there is anything on which we should be further assisted in this application, the response was in the negative. In the circumstances, it remains for this court to dismiss the application of the Applicant.