Fadley Faisal
The Magistrate’s Court on Saturday handed a 24-month jail sentence to a policeman and ordered him to compensate BND150 to victims he had cheated.
In default of payment of the compensation, the defendant would have to serve another week’s jail.
He was also ordered to settle a BND400 fine for driving his vehicle on four occasions with an expired road tax, or serve an additional four weeks’ jail in default of payment.
Lance Corporal 4555 Sahlan bin Haji Mat Sahat, 39, was found guilty on two charges for cheating under Section 420 of the Penal Code (Chapter 22) and one charge for attempting to cheat under Section 420 read with 511 of the same act.
DPP Dayangku Didi-Nuraza binti Pengiran Abdul Latiff’s case against the defendant shows that the whistle was blown on the defendant when a foreign woman lodged a complaint to the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) about an incident on April 27, 2015 in Jalan Kilanas.
The victim said she was stopped by the defendant and was told that a stone had flown from the victim’s car tyre, cracking the defendant’s car windscreen.
The defendant demanded the victim to pay BND400 for the damage.
The defendant also told the victim that he was a policeman.
After negotiating, the victim agreed to give the defendant BND50, which the defendant pressed was not a bribe.
ACB further revealed that the defendant had cheated other victims in the same modus operandi.
All offences occurred were committed on different dates, different times and places at Jalan Belimbing, Jalan Batu Bersurat and Jalan Kilanas sometime between April and May 2015.
The victims were a permanent resident, a Malaysian and a Thai.
The ACB also revealed that the defendant had driven a vehicle with an expired road tax during all cheating incidents.
Earlier in December 2020, the defendant denied the charges for cheating and attempt, while pleading guilty to the charges for road traffic offences.
The prosecution brought in eight witnesses to prove the case.
In a virtual proceeding with the defendant in ACB custody on January 20, Senior Magistrate Hajah Ervy Sufitriana binti Haji Abdul Rahman found the prosecution’s case satisfactory beyond reasonable doubt and disbelieved the defendant’s defence, leading to convictions.
On handing sentence on Saturday, the court said that the defendant was a police personnel who was supposed to uphold the law but was found as one of the offenders instead.
