SINGAPORE: A 38-year old manager, Jerome Ow Siew
Nam, was sentenced to jail and a fine on Monday for making a fake
marriage certificate.
Ow was separated but not divorced from his Thai wife
Usa Naree when he started seeing another woman in
2006.
His girlfriend, who was unaware of his marital
status, became pregnant with his child and wanted him to marry her.
To appease her, Ow scanned his original marriage certificate and
made a copy, replacing his wife's name with that of his 28-year-old
girlfriend's.
He made the false document sometime between October 2006 and
February 2007.
Ow was sentenced on Monday to two weeks' jail for this offence and
was also fined S$5,000.
Ow tied the knot with Ms Usa, a social escort, in 2004 but their
marriage was an unhappy one. She went back to Thailand about two
years later and took their young son with her.
During this separation, Ow started seeing his new girlfriend and
gave her the false marriage certificate after she pestered him to
marry her. He lied to her, claiming that his grandmother's lawyer
had settled their paperwork and they need not go down to the
Registry of Marriages.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Amardeep Singh said the girlfriend
believed Ow and the couple even had a marriage ceremony on February
14, 2007.
DPP Singh said the pair then lived together as so-called man and
wife with the girlfriend's parents. But she became suspicious two
days after the ceremony and decided to check with the ROM about
their marriage. Only then did the girlfriend find out that Ow had
deceived her and she informed the police.
The court heard that Ow's marriage with Ms Usa only dissolved in
2009.
Defence Counsel, Montague Choy had said in his mitigation plea that
his client's offence was "merely technical" and "not
serious".
However, District Judge Francis Remedios disagreed with this and
stressed that third parties as well as public bodies could be
affected by the offence. Citing an example, the judge said that the
girlfriend had to produce a marriage certificate to register her
child in school.
Ow's jail term will begin on September 12 as he has to settle some
personal matters first. He has to surrender to the authorities by
noon that day and is now out on a bail of S$6,000.
-CNA/ac