Wednesday 3 February 2016

Investigating crimes involving minors: a minefield of lies

As a follow up to the piece I did on the 14 year old boy in Singapore who killed himself after he was interrogated by the police, I would like to draw your attention to one of the stories that I posted in the comments section of that post. That story highlighted the complexities of investigating cases like that involving minors - whilst I am not trying to draw any parallel between the two cases (we simply don't know enough to try to do that), All I am trying to do is to give you some food for thought on cases like this and highlight the fact that there are always two sides to every story. I will expand on the story and provide a bit more details of this other case; then I'd like to hear what you make of this story.
So, I was told this story by my friend who was a JC teacher at the time - these two students (guy and a girl) were having sex in a lecture theatre late in the afternoon when they thought no one was around. They were already in a relationship and whilst that is fairly normal for JC students, their parents were unaware of the relationship. An older teacher had left something in the LT and went back to get it, caught them red handed, literally in the middle of the act. Now this teacher was a prude and reacted in an over the top manner, rather than pretending not to see anything (which would have been what some other teachers may have done). The two were yelled at, told to get dressed and were marched to the principal's office at once. It was at this moment that my friend who happened to be n the office at that time noticed that something was very wrong, as the girl in question was crying her eyes out and very distressed.

This girl came from a very conservative Christian family, so when the principal claimed "I'll have to inform your parents", she then panicked, begged the principal not to call her parents. When he insisted on doing so, she played the victim's card, claiming that the boy had "forced himself on her and she was too scared to resist". Oh dear. This blew the case out of the water, from two horny teenagers making out to crying rape - you see, the age of consent in Singapore is 16 years old and since both students were over the age of consent, technically speaking, there was no crime committed since both parties were consensual. At the very worst, having sex on the school premises can be considered behaviour that is inappropriate. They clearly broke the school's rules and it is perhaps an issue of conduct, but the moment she played the rape victim card - the police had to be called as rape is a very serious crime. So the parents and the police were called and my friend said that the boy did protest his innocence and stated that the sex with his girlfriend was consensual, but he was treated like a guilty criminal whilst the girl was treated with sympathy. 
In the days that followed, the girl proved to be an unreliable witness, changing her stories several times and cracked under pressure when the boy's parents lawyered up. They accused the girl of making up the story and finally, she confessed when it was made clear to her that she could get into even more trouble for making up false accusations. The tipping point was when it was clear that her parents no longer believed that she was a chaste Christian virgin and nothing she could do or say could convince them otherwise. Her parents may have been religiously conservative, but they were not stupid either - they knew their daughter well enough to see through her lies. Finally, she confessed that she was only intending to kiss him and go no further, but the kissing was consensual and she had allowed him to do more than kiss her in the end with her consent, but that was not her intention but regardless of her intention, she was consensual all the way and had only changed her mind in retrospect after getting caught and was afraid of her parents' reaction. Case was dropped but not before she put that boy and his family through hell - why? Because she got scared and played the victim's card. Did she even realize how wrong she was to make false accusations like that? 

My teacher friend noted that whilst the police and the school staff treated the accused like a rapist, it was really the parents of the girl who realized that their daughter was clearly lying. Firstly, she claimed she barely knew the boy at school - but this was then proven wrong when the teachers and police interviewed the students at the school who all said that everyone knew they were a couple. Then the girl said, okay he is my friend but we are not in a relationship. The boy was then able to produce evidence proving their intimate relationship: cards, gifts, text messages, emails etc. She then tried to change her story again to claim that they were in a relationship but had already broken up - again, this was proven to be false as the boy was able to show text messages within 24 hours of the 'rape' which showed a very loving relationship and other students witnessed them holding hands that very day. Even my teacher friend witnessed the fact that they sat together that day during his lesson and were more interested in each other than his lesson. It became increasingly clear that she was a liar - a very bad one at that. Thankfully her parents were the first to see through her lies and put a stop to it - they were the ones who told the police, "our daughter is lying, we know that."
But here's the thing we can take away from this story: children and teenagers lie to their parents all the time. The fact that they don't always get away with it doesn't stop them from lying - especially if admitting to the truth may lead to some kind of punishment. Teenagers will always choose to try to avoid the punishment and any concept of honesty and integrity is often sacrificed in the process. In this case, the girl chose to lie because she knew her parents would be furious if they found out that she was sexually active. It really didn't occur to her that her parents would be even more angry when they realized she had falsely accused an innocent man of rape, but she didn't care either way. Imagine if a teenage boy was looking at porn on the internet when he is alone at home, he then hears the front door opening and his mother shout from the door, "hello, I'm home! How are you darling? What are you doing" Naturally he would close the tab the porn was on and say something like, "I'm just doing some reading for a project lah mum, did you have a good day at work?" He wouldn't tell her what he was looking at, of course not. It would upset his mother and get him into trouble, so of course he is going to lie. And guess what? We accept this to be totally normal.

Children and teenagers can be selfish, dishonest, irrational and untrustworthy - lying is not so much a deliberate attempt to deceive, but rather just a simple tool they use to get what they want without having to face the consequences or being punished. Adults have a rather different attitude to lying, this is perhaps because an adult would be more aware of the consequences of making false accusations; it is not that adults are more honest, we're just better at doing risk assessments before telling a lie: "if there's a reasonably high chance that I can't get away with telling a lie, it's better not to even try just in case I get caught." So when we adults do lie, we usually get away with it - but when children lie, they are often less skillful liars (well, some are more skillful than others). The real danger is when adults try to make assumptions about whether a child is lying or telling the truth. Thus in any kind of crime involving allegations made by or against minors, investigators have a minefield of lies, lies and more lies to navigate whilst trying to find out what actually happened. It is not as simple as just finding out the truth via a straight-forward interrogation.
What has this story got to do with the case of the 14 year old boy who killed himself? Well, it does demonstrate the complexities of such cases - when there are clearly two sides to the story. Depending on whom you listen to and chose to believe, then it has a serious implication on whether or not a crime has been committed (and if so, what the nature of the crime was). At least in this case, thanks to the parents of the girl who reacted with a big dose of common sense (even when the staff at the school and the police didn't), they put a stop to the false allegations. They didn't want to destroy the boy's life by having a bright, young JC student convicted of rape or even having that accusation lingering over him for the rest of his life - so they nipped it in the bud when they did their own 'interrogation' with their daughter. I suppose that is a triumph of common sense, but how many parents would be as reasonable as these two? How would these case had turned out if they had actually blindly believe their daughter's lies? Would justice have prevailed? 

So that's it from me on this, I do hope I have given you more food for thought on the issue. Many thanks for reading. 

6 comments:

  1. Whether he was guilty or not, the boy already knew that the police had decided the outcome of the case, and that he was guilty. He believed that his side of the story is unimportant and had already been discarded. He even accepted this and confessed because he didn't believe that anything he said would convince them otherwise, so he may as well say what they wanted to hear so he could get it over with.

    There is a strong desire for a quick resolution and simplifying the case was the easiest way. This approach has made Singapore one of the most efficient countries but at the price of steamrolling over individual rights and freedoms. Some people may think this is a price worth paying and that if they did nothing wrong that they would have nothing to fear. If one day they were in the position of being accused with no possibility of proving their innocence since the government's mind is already made up and they need to show that they nabbed the perpetrator, even if it is the wrong one, they will then see that the system is imperfect but by that point it will be too late for them.

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    1. Thanks for your comment Ms G. In this story, had it not been for the common sense of the girl's parents, who knows how it may have turned out.

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  2. Hi LIFT,
    Whenever I read or hear about such heavy handed approach by the authorities in Singapore, the following quote comes to mind. And I shake my head and wonder when will Singaporeans ever learn.

    "First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
    Because I was not a Socialist.
    Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
    Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
    Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
    Because I was not a Jew.
    Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

    Martin Niemöller

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    1. Hi Gustavo, I am writing a follow up about the mindset of Singaporeans. The thing is that they would rather bury their heads in the sands about the authorities' treatment of minors than to actually try to do anything about it because they need to believe that things are PERFECT in Singapore in order to sleep at night. So they tell themselves lies to justify incidents like this - await my next post, akan datang.

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  3. I've witnessed such stuff during my time in secondary school.
    A sec 3 girl had sex with one of my friend, but when he wanted to break up she claimed she was pregnant and told her parents that she got raped.

    Police came in yada yada yada (and I can assure you it's not plain clothes, but this is 15 years ago so procedure may be different)

    Long story short - the girl admitted she was lying, her dad knelt down and apologized to my friend's family. (i didn't see this part, but was told by my friend) asking them not to pursue the matter with the girl for lying.

    The only question I have is this - did the girl in your friend's case admitted that she's lying? I'm surprised that the police will take their word of the parents. Just wondering about the legality of such situation - a child report a crime, but the parents play down the situation and that is considered legal binding? I'll have an issue if that is the case - it's like having a kid crying abuse but police taking parents' word that he is exaggerating and they are ok because no visible scars.

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    1. Hi Powell, somehow I am not surprised to hear that a similar case has happened before. I have to double check with my friend but I think that since the girl lied to escape punishment from her parents, the moment it became clear that she would get into more trouble with her parents if she insisted the sex wasn't consensual, she gave up trying to claim she was raped. Remember, she didn't just have a change of heart - but was exposed as an unreliable witness as she kept changing her story a few times, so by which point even the police were not even believing her; so I am guessing it got to the stage whereby it wasn't just her parents who didn't believe her, even the police seriously doubted her version of the events upon investigation. Moral of the story? If you wanna go down that path, you had better get your story right and stick to it. She wasn't a good liar.

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