The Magistrate’s Court fixed tomorrow on handing down a sentence to Hajah Faizah binti Haji Abdul Gapar who pleaded guilty to a false alarm charge.
Defence counsel Pengiran Shahyzul bin Pengiran Abdul Rahman pleaded for the court’s consideration and urged for a fine to be imposed on his client.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Raihan Nabilah binti Haji Ahmad Ghazali sought for the court to make an order on the prosecution’s costs.
Hajah Faizah earlier denied the charge of disseminating a false statement likely to cause alarm.
A trial was conducted up until the defendant was invited to enter defence on Saturday. On Monday, the defendant changed her plea.
The prosecution’s charge stated that the defendant had made a false statement, by making a video recording with a caption purporting that four employees at a restaurant, in the neighbourhood where the defendant lives in Kampong Mabohai, were discovered by police officers to have violated their quarantine orders by attending work while their BruHealth was on Code Red, likely to cause alarm, at 6.58pm on August 31, 2021.
The prosecution revealed that the restaurant manager filed a police report regarding the false video statement that had gone viral on the day itself. Police investigations first confirmed that the message was false. Police traced the video to the defendant.
Investigations revealed that she had received a message from her aunt, conveying the false statement and told the defendant to report it.
The defendant took to the restaurant, snapping photos of the police scrutiny.
The defendant sent photos to her aunt, saying that so far four of the restaurant’s employees had been found working, with Code Red.
The defendant also admitted that she had sent the same video with captions, to another fellow resident in the neighbourhood, fearing for her own and neighbours’ safety as they frequent the restaurant. – Fadley Faisal
