Woman uses naked photos to get fiance's ex fired

Woman uses naked photos to get fiance's ex fired

SINGAPORE - A police officer, his pregnant girlfriend and the concerned mother of a secondary school student.

These three people were involved in an elaborate scam to get a woman fired from her job at a school - by sending her naked photographs to the principal.

What's unusual about the case is that the trio do not exist.

They were the figment of a vengeful woman's imagination, created to set in motion her devious plan to sabotage her fiance's former girlfriend.

Her reason?

She was upset, not because her fiance was still seeing his ex, but because she felt his family preferred his former girlfriend to her and were constantly comparing the two of them.

Siti Nurazlin Samat, 28, succeeded in making the former girlfriend lose her job.

The victim was a co-curriculum executive in a human resources firm and was attached to a secondary school in the east.

But Siti, a remote equipment specialist with port operator PSA, got into trouble with the law after the victim made a police report about an unknown person sending four sets of her naked photos to her workplaces.

On Monday, Siti pleaded guilty to one count of providing false information to a public servant and one of two counts of circulating obscene material.

The other count of circulating obscene material will be taken into consideration during her sentencing.

There is a gag order to protect the victim's identity.

Siti's fiance was in a relationship with the victim between 2007 and 2009. He started seeing Siti in February 2010.

Insecure with the comparisons, Siti got the victim's phone number from her fiance's mobile phone without his knowledge.

The 3 Faces Of Siti

POLICEMAN

Using the fake name Fadli Khairullah, Siti Nurazlin Samat impersonates a policeman to woo the victim and gets her to e-mail 10 nude photos of herself.

PREGNANT GIRLFRIEND

Siti then takes on the role of Fadli's pregnant girlfriend Liza and confronts the victim in person. She warns her to leave him alone as she was pregnant with 'his' child.

CONCERNED MOTHER

Siti poses as a concerned mother of a secondary school student and sends the nude photos to the victim's employers. The victim is dismissed from both her workplaces.

In February 2011, she created a fake persona - a 24-year-old police officer named "Fadli Khairullah" - and contacted the victim using mobile phones borrowed from her friend and nephew.

As "Fadli", she told the victim that she had got the latter's contact from one of her friends on Facebook and that "he" wanted to get to know her better.

She spun elaborate lies about "Fadli", telling the victim that he was a senior staff sergeant at "Bedok Division Headquarters" before being transferred to the Internal Security Department.

She also concocted tales about "his" involvement during the 2011 General Election and 9/11 anniversary to win the victim's trust.

"Fadli" and the victim were in an intimate online relationship from February to September 2011, during which they communicated daily on "his" fake e-mail and Facebook accounts and the two borrowed phones.

Trust

"Fadli" repeatedly told the victim that "he" wanted to get engaged to her, and they began exchanging photographs via e-mail between May and June 2011.

Siti's ploy worked as the victim eventually trusted "Fadli" enough to e-mail "him" 10 nude photos of herself. She saved the images in a thumb drive with the intention of injuring the victim's reputation later on.

In September, Siti created another persona - "Fadli's" girlfriend, "Liza" - so she could end her online relationship with the victim.

Posing as "Lisa", Siti then met the victim and warned her to stay away from "Fadli" as she was pregnant with "his" child.

She even e-mailed pictures of "Liza's" positive pregnancy test results to the victim, who then ended her relationship with "Fadli".

In December, Siti took on her third persona in the final phase of her scam.

Posing as an anonymous concerned parent of a child in the school the victim was attached to, she sent a typewritten letter and four of the 10 nude photos to its principal.

In the letter, Siti claimed that she had found the pictures between the pages of her "son's" mathematics textbook.

She claimed her "son" told her that he had received the photos from the victim, and insinuated that there may have been incidents of sexual abuse and inappropriate behaviour within the school.

She wrote: "What if your students or male staffs (sic) has (sic) an 'affair' with (the victim) and doing something 'illegal' within the school compound? As a student, this is VERY disturbing and intolerable."

Siti demanded that the victim be sacked and threatened to bring the matter to the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the Ministry of Manpower.

This prompted the principal to meet her vice-principal and the MOE cluster superintendent.

As a result of the sensitive allegations of sexual abuse between the victim and a student, the school decided to end her services.

Siti also sent three printed sets of the nude photos of the victim to the chief executive of her human resources firm, and she was dismissed from her job.

Siti, who is out on bail, will make her mitigation plea in court next Tuesday.

For giving false information to a public servant, she can be jailed up to a year, fined $5,000 or both. For circulating obscene materials, she can be jailed up to three months, fined or both.

Was it fair to fire victim?

After naked photos of her were sent to her employers, a woman was fired from her job.

Is this unfair dismissal and can she seek recourse?

Not really, said lawyers and human resource (HR) experts contacted by The New Paper.

Much of what she can do depends on her employment contract, lawyer Luke Lee said.

"She has to look at the terms of her (employment contract). If it states that she has to abide by a certain moral code, then there's nothing she can do," he said.

Furthermore, civil suits over unfair dismissals are rare in Singapore, he said.

While it might seem unfair that her private life had interfered with her professional one, it has to be noted that she was working in a school, said Mr Lee.

"We all have our secrets and it's unfortunate that hers caught up with her in a bad way. But in a comparatively conservative society like Singapore, people tend to expect educators to behave a certain way," he said.

Ms Annie Yap, the founder of AYP Asia, which specialises in HR consultancy, concurred, saying that those working in education are expected to have "certain moral values".

Unprecedented

"If she has truly been victimised, then (her employers) shouldn't have fired her. But at that time, they didn't have the background (of the case)," she said.

"Despite that, those working in a secondary school must have a certain sort of conduct."

Ms Yap noted that while the case is unprecedented here, she doubts that the woman would be rehired by her former employer.

"In this case, it might be for the better because she might want to start things afresh since there will be baggage (from the incident)," she said.

rloh@sph.com.sg

 


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