IT seemed like a relatively straightforward case: a businessman is caught running a scam involving car COEs.

But three police divisions soon became involved, files were lost into a bureaucratic morass and the case dragged on for nearly six years.

Singapore's top court has slammed police for a 'lackadaisical' investigations and set free the businessman Randy Chan Kum Hong, who was hauled back to court last July to face charges related to the scam for which he had already served nine-month jail in 2003.

In the second round of prosecution, Chan, now 39, was initially jailed for five years, but on appeal, Justice V.K. Rajah slashed it to just two days.

In a written judgement released last week on his decision, Court of Appeal Justice V.K. Rajah said Chan suffered through years of 'agonising uncertainty occasioned needlessly by rather slipshod investigations.'

The only saving grace for the police was that the delay was 'neither deliberate nor malicious' and not due to any one person or department.

Throughout the 13-page judgment, Justice Rajah repeatedly referred to the sloppy police work, saying it was unfair to Chan - even though he deserved to be punished for his crimes.

Chan was part of a group of scammers who, from 1998 to 2001, cheated finance companies into granting car loans.

Arrested in 2002, he admitted to cheating and was jailed for nine months that year. Although he had then also confessed to the scams, no charges relating to them were brought against him until last July.

One key point in Justice Rajah's judgment was that prosecution should not be carried out in 'dribs and drabs'.

This is to ensure that the offender has a meaningful chance to reintegrate into society after serving his time.

This is especially so for Chan, who Justice Rajah said, could claim he is an 'entirely different person today', going so far as to call him a 'persuasive ambassador' for the Yellow Ribbon Project which aims to help criminals fit back into society.

After his release from jail in 2003, Chan become the general manager of a mobile phone company.

He also had won custody of his two sons, aged 11 and 14, from a former marriage which showed the courts had recognised his proactive efforts to fulfil his family duties.

Justice Rajah said that the new charges in 2007, threatened to destroy 'in one fell swoop' all of Chan's good work after his release.

Read the full story in Wednesday's edition of The Straits Times

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