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Tag: Davinder Singh

  • Postings By Han Hui Hui Shows That Roy Ngerng Wanted To Aggravate Libel (For Asylum)

    Postings By Han Hui Hui Shows That Roy Ngerng Wanted To Aggravate Libel (For Asylum)

    So the 3 day drama in the High Court ended today with Roy Ngerng doing what he does best, misleading and being insincere in offering his apology. Senior Counsel Davinder Singh underlined this, as this Channel News Asia report shows:

    http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/roy-ngerng-has-not-been/1958428.html

    To quote SC Singh:

    “As you were incurring these expenses and filing fees, you were aware that if you continued to aggravate the injury, there was a risk that the damages could be increased,” the Drew & Napier lawyer said. “The sensible thing to do was to stop aggravating.”

    “He is continuing to attack the plaintiff (Mr Lee) for improper motives,” he told the court.

    Roy had no qualms in misleading the public to donate to his ‘legal fund, yet in the end he blew all of that, not only gallivanting around the world’ but even taking funds from foreign sources. Only to come to court to again say ‘he’s sorry and had no intent to defame.’ In the end what did that $110,000 from 1200 donors achieve when he discharged his latest lawyer, George Hwang last week and defended himself with Ms Han Hui Hui appointed as his ‘co-counsel?’ Under misleading remarks of fighting for people’s CPF return, he took $110,000 which could have helped many of those very CPF members with debts or in dire need of them. He could have settled the matter very early on by agreeing to the demands in the letter and apologising unreservedly. He would have walked away with a ‘moral victory,’ made the PM to look like a big bully and then continued to fight for the people without a need to waste $110,000. In doing so, he now has made crowd-funding for those who really need it more difficult. Take a look at his advice to Amos Yee, who also crowd-funded $20,000, which also wasn’t required as his lawyers were doing his case pro-bono.

    Senior Counsel Davinder methodically and systematically ripped Roy’s arguments to shreds proving time and again his deceit – saying 1 thing and doing another.

    Simply put, Roy has no qualms in blowing away money and teaching others likewise on how to obtain it with misleading remarks and not coming clean. Some people ask me why I continue to attack him and the rest of the Looney Fringe – well this is why – lying and being untruthful. Until then, I was a fellow supporter – I was encouraging him and Ms Han, thinking they were doing it for selfless reasons – fighting for a cause, being true activists. It all changed when I found the ulterior motives and I first raised the alarm in this blog post on him seeking asylum.

    Until today Han Hui Hui and Roy Ngerng are asking money from the public, if not from their personal pages then via their Empowering Singaporeans FB page. Both are working in tandem and in concert to deceive the public that they are ‘fighting for them,’ yet both have no qualms in going abroad and telling lies to their selected audiences. They want fame at all costs, yet do not work, do not go out to help the needy, rather chose to play ‘victim’ at every stage. Heaven forbid if they are elected – they’ll squander all the public funds they get their hands on and blame somebody else for it.

    I was a bit lazy then to upload the Facebook messages between me and Ms Han, but now that the case is over in court, let me share them. Since then I’ve been proven right each and every time, the words and actions by them have shown them to be what they truly are – opportunists with misguided notions of self importance. Note these are not words by a casual observer – it’s by Ms Han, Roy’s very own right hand ‘woman.’ Her actions are done with his blessings and in concert with him. And so here they are in sequence:

    1) Me chiding HHH for upping the ante with postings on her FB page.

    2) HHH claiming it was Roy who asked to up the ante.

    3) Buttressing the PM’s case of making the slander worse by aggravating it.

     

    4) She claims that this is what Roy, Leong and Ravi wants.

    5) At that point of time, I was under the impression that his lawyer M Ravi was behind this too. I later found out (and confirmed by SC Singh) that Ravi was in the dark about all of this.

     

     

    6) She  voluntarily mentions asylum the 1st time. I wasn’t taking it seriously then and made a joke about it.

     

    7) All this transpired before the Monday deadline, the earlier conversation took place on Saturday May 24th 2014. Thinking Roy was being badly advised, even by M Ravi, I volunteered to go meet him at Ravi’s office on Monday.

     

     

     

    8) Then on Monday May 26th, SC Davinder sent a fresh notice rejecting Roy’s supposed ‘apology’ after it was revealed he not only made a new video but disseminated it (and the blog post he was to take down) to lots of people at home and abroad (as stated in the CNA article above).  I was angry at those actions and told Ms Han off. She responded by stating again voluntarily – he was doing this for asylum.

    9) This time I took it more seriously and probed further and she explained:

    So there you have it – from the mouth of Roy’s best pal and confidant – his true intentions. Now before you say she’s making this up, do consider that at that point of time, we were friends – I genuinely believed that Roy and her were fighting for justice, they were passionate about the CPF issue, a bit misguided but their hearts were in the right place. Then this bombshell – all this was just a mere gimmick, telling the public and supporters 1 thing but doing another.

    Of course since then Ms Han has either blocked me or closed this account in the hope it won’t come to light. Furthermore it shows here as Facebook user – so was it really her or me making this up? Fortunately I did a screenshot of this conversation where her name is shown. Here’s 2 examples:

     

    Proof from Points 6 & 7 above that it was Ms Han Hui Hui and no one else who volunteered this information on the motives of Roy Ngerng to aggravate the libel.

    Conclusion. 

    So Roy can go and deny in court and especially to his foreign supporters that he is being bullied and tormented. He can lie to hard-core opposition supporters that he’s being up front and truthful, but he cannot run away from the fact that his very own ‘co-counsel’ and best friend ‘let the cat out of the bag,’ that all he did was with an ulterior motive. He never had the interests at the people at heart as he claims even suggesting that he writes nothing but the truth in his blog – The Heart Truths. Rather his actions and flip flopping show a different side. He tells a different thing to each of his preferred audiences and conveniently blocks or ignores hard questions about his motives and actions.

    In fact we needn’t go so far, at that point in time he had 1 of the best human rights lawyers around, M Ravi, to defend him. Why didn’t he just leave it to Ravi to handle Davinder Singh and the PM? Surely that’s the most logical thing to do when you face a letter of demand and potential lawsuit – leave it to your lawyers. Why do things without consulting him first? Why do things behind his back? Ravi would have complied with the terms laid out by Davinder and worded an apology to the PM’s liking and the matter would have been resolved there and then! He would walk away with a moral victory and could have continued to fight for the people he claims he wants to fight for. But that was never the case was it? No it was all about him and his self interests. It was to gain monies from unsuspecting followers. He’s no hero, he’s just a liar trying to trick unsuspecting people into believing he fights for them and wants to be rewarded with fame and money for his exploits, and possibly asylum. Of course he was too dumb to realise that no country would offer him asylum, so he tries to make himself the consummate victim, in the hope it’ll pay off eventually. And that’s why I termed him ‘The Looney Fringe.’ Anyway let me end with this warning I gave Ms Han then – again I was proven right.

    Source: http://anyhowhantam.blogspot.sg

  • Davinder Singh: Roy Ngerng Used Foreign Organisations To Pressure The Courts

    Davinder Singh: Roy Ngerng Used Foreign Organisations To Pressure The Courts

    Blogger Roy Ngerng used foreign organisations to put pressure on the Courts, Senior Counsel Davinder Singh – acting on behalf of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong – asserted on Friday (Jul 3), the final day of a hearing to assess the amount of damages has to pay Mr Lee for defaming him by alleging the misappropriation of CPF funds.

    He cited two letters that Roy Ngerng had submitted to the Supreme Court. One is from the International Commission of Jurists, a human rights non-governmental organization based in Switzerland. The other is from the Centre for International Law, a human rights group based in the Philippines.

    “You used these foreign organisations to suggest to this court that if it were to award high damages it would run afoul of international human rights law, it would be generating an atmosphere of intimidation and would be a form of judicial harassment,” Mr Singh said. Mr Singh added that Mr Ngerng was also suggesting that if the court were to award damages, it would be “denying” the right of freedom to expression or “impairing” it.

    In response, Justice Lee Sieu Kin, who is presiding over the proceedings, stressed that he does not feel any pressure from external parties.

    Mr Singh also said the 34-year-old blogger was not being truthful to the court. For example, the blogger had sent emails regarding the takedown of his blogpost to 82 journalists’ email addresses, instead of the claimed 52, said Mr Singh.

    The lawyer also said that at the time of the incident, the blog homepage – where posts could be read in full – had ten times the pageviews of the blog article itself. But when Mr Singh and his team asked for information on homepage views, they were not provided by Mr Ngerng.

    The blogger argued that the popularity of a post should be measured by the article’s pageviews, and not the homepage, which contains other articles.

    The Senior Counsel also put forth that in Mr Ngerng’s ambitions to publish factual information, he did not publish the Prime Minister’s rejection to his out-of-court offer for S$5,000. In defence, Mr Ngerng said that Mr Lee’s response to the offer being “derisory” was already reported by the media.

    LEGAL COSTS

    Mr Ngerng said he was seeking financial help as his savings and the donations have dwindled since the case went to court. About S$110,000 was donated by the public.

    Mr Ngerng, who said he now lives off his parents, told the court that S$70,000 had been paid to lawyer M Ravi, while S$36,000 was used to pay Mr Lee’s lawyers in costs for the summary judgment as well as the Queen’s Counsel application.

    The remaining money was used to pay Mr Ngerng’s third lawyer George Hwang, but the blogger received an additional £5,000 (S$10,500) from London-based human rights organisation Media Legal Defence Initiative (MLDI) to fund the case. Mr Ngerng said MLDI and another London-based organisation, Article 19, assisted in legal advice.

    But when the blogger told the court that all the donations had been spent, the Senior Counsel said that knowing his means were limited, Mr Ngerng should not have aggravated the offence with follow-up blogposts.

    “As you were incurring these expenses and filing fees, you were aware that if you continued to aggravate the injury, there was a risk that the damages could be increased,” the Drew & Napier lawyer said. “The sensible thing to do was to stop aggravating.”

    Mr Singh noted that after receiving the letter of demand from Mr Lee’s lawyers, Mr Ngerng immediately offered damages “to get away on the cheap”, yet continued aggravating the offence with his subsequent actions.

    “He is continuing to attack the plaintiff (Mr Lee) for improper motives,” he told the court.

    Mr Singh also highlighted a blogpost that Mr Ngerng had written the day before the assessment of damages hearing, saying that he was going to court and that “we have to fight back and take a stand”.

    Mr Ngerng said, despite the blogpost’s headline mentioning the damages hearing, the post was also about teenage blogger Amos Yee who was involved in another court case, and could thus not be seen as aggravating the defamation case.

    “Over the past few days, you have heaped accusations about me of far from being sincere, despite how sincere I’m trying to show (I am),” he said to Mr Singh.

    The case was adjourned at 3pm, with written submissions due Aug 31. As Mr Ngerng will be away for the next two weeks for reservist, Justice Lee gave him an additional six weeks after that to make his written submissions.

     

    Source: www.channelnewsasia.com

  • Second Day Of Hearing To Assess Damages Roy Ngerng To Pay Lee Hsien Loong

    Second Day Of Hearing To Assess Damages Roy Ngerng To Pay Lee Hsien Loong

    A second day of a Supreme Court hearing to assess the damages that Roy Ngerng has to pay to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong for defamation saw the blogger being grilled by Mr Lee’s lawyer.

    Taking the witness stand on Thursday (Jul 2), Mr Ngerng, who was unrepresented after discharging his lawyer last week, maintained that he had no intent to defame the Prime Minister. However, Mr Lee’s lawyer Davinder Singh said that replicating a Channel NewsAsia chart on the City Harvest Church trial, and replacing founder Kong Hee’s photo with that of PM Lee, was evidence of his intent.

    “You were so consumed by your desire to promote yourself that you were prepared to make an untrue accusation,” Mr Singh said, after putting it to Mr Ngerng that his lack of understanding of the term ‘misappropriation’ used in the offending blogpost meant he did not understand the implication of using the term.

    Mr Singh also questioned the sincerity of the blogger’s repeated apologies over the defamation. “You never believed that the Prime Minister had the basis to sue. You made (the apologies) only so that you could get away with not paying damages,” said Singh.

    The blogger countered by saying Mr Singh had made a “whole host of accusations” against him. The “mismanagement of CPF funds” was the Government’s fault and not solely PM Lee’s, he said, adding that the onus was on the Government to find out who had mismanaged the funds.

    At one point, Mr Ngerng said the Government – not just Prime Minister Lee – should sue him.

    Mr Ngerng also said that his blog’s reach was too low to hurt the Prime Minister’s reputation. “People didn’t care about the article I was sued for. People cared about the demand letter your client sent me,” he told Mr Singh. He added that he was “scared and angry” after receiving a letter of demand from Mr Lee’s lawyers, threatening to sue.

    He also felt aggrieved by PM Lee’s actions to sue an “ordinary citizen”. “He’s the Prime Minister and I’m just a blogger. Why did he have to go to that extent?” asked Mr Ngerng.

    The 34-year-old said he did not know that reposting the letter meant that he was republishing the offending blogpost as the letter had cited statements in the post that PM Lee felt were defamatory. “If you had asked me, I would have taken it down,” said Mr Ngerng to Mr Singh.

    According to him, his blog had two million views since its inception, but the offending post had a low view count.

    Thus, PM Lee did not suffer a lower standing in the eyes of the public as a result of the defamation, Mr Ngerng said. As proof, he tendered documents showing instances where users showered compliments on Mr Lee on the Prime Minister’s Facebook page.

    Mr Singh said that two emails that Ngerng sent out to local and international journalists with information on the location of two blogposts he had been asked to take down, were seen as aggravating. “Far from feeling oppressed, you were taking the fight not only to Singaporeans but internationally,” he said.

    The blogger also broke a promise to remove a YouTube video related to the defamatory allegations, Mr Singh said, although Mr Ngerng claimed that making the video setting private meant it was “as good as gone”.

    Mr Singh questioned his move to grant four other people access to the YouTube video in question, including bloggers Leong Sze Hian and Han Hui Hui who were assisting Mr Ngerng on the case. Mr Ngerng said that he allowed people access before the video was uploaded to help him check that the video was not defamatory.

    He also insisted that his subsequent actions to remove material after demands were sent by PM Lee’s lawyers were to be seen as a mitigating factor in the assessment for damages. “I did it beyond what was required,” he stated.

    Mr Ngerng said on the stand that his character was assassinated due to the suit because others had called him a “liar” and said that he published false information, although he maintained that he had posted factual information.

    When Mr Singh asked the blogger if he did not regret what he had done, Mr Ngerng retorted, “I do not regret talking about the CPF”.

    DETERMINING DAMAGES

    During Wednesday’s hearing, which saw the Prime Minister take the stand for about six hours for cross-examination by Mr Ngerng, Mr Lee’s lawyers called for “a very high award of damages” on account of Mr Ngerng’s “malice and continuing attacks”.

    “The court has consistently awarded substantial damages in cases where false allegations of criminal conduct were made in the office of Prime Minister,” said the lawyers said in their opening statement. “The plaintiff respectfully asks that the court expresses, in the strongest terms, its indignation at the defendant’s conduct. The case for a very high award of damages, including aggravated damages, is compelling.”

    Mr Ngerng, a former healthcare programme coordinator at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, had written a blogpost last May comparing the Prime Minister’s usage of CPF monies to the City Harvest Church leaders’ alleged misuse of church funds. In his blog, he charged that Mr Lee did so via the Government’s investment arms, Temasek Holdings and GIC.

    He was ordered by the court to no longer publish any assertions that Mr Lee was misappropriating CPF monies. He was also ordered to pay Mr Lee S$29,000 for legal fees and related expenses that were borne leading up to the application for the summary judgment.

    The blogger later wrote in a blogpost that although the injunction was in place, he would continue to speak up for CPF and other issues.

    His application for a Queen’s Counsel to take on his case was also rejected by the High Court on Jun 11, after Justice Steven Chong said that the appointed QC had no expertise in Singapore-specific defamation issues. Mr Ngerng was ordered to pay costs of S$6,000 for the dismissed application.

     

    Source: www.channelnewsasia.com

  • Davinder Singh: Case To Seek ‘Strong Damages’ From Roy Ngerng

    Davinder Singh: Case To Seek ‘Strong Damages’ From Roy Ngerng

    Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s lawyer made the case for substantial damages to be awarded today (July 1), asking the court to express “in the strongest terms” its indignation at blogger Roy Ngerng’s conduct in defaming their client.

    The case stands out for the “depth and intensity” of Mr Ngerng’s malice towards Mr Lee and his resolve to damage Mr Lee’s reputation,
    said Mr Davinder Singh in his opening statement tendered to court today at the start of a three-day hearing on how much the blogger has to pay in damages. “The case for a very high award of damages, including aggravated damages, is compelling.”

    A High Court ruled in November last year that Mr Ngerng had defamed Mr Lee in a May 2014 blog posting alleging misappropriation of money paid by Singaporeans to the Central Provident Fund. Today, citing a previous defamation case where the Singapore Democratic Party was ordered to pay Mr Lee Kuan Yew S$280,000 in general and aggravated damages — he was then Minister Mentor in the Prime Minister’s Office and also the chairman of the GIC — Mr Singh said: “In this instance, the Plaintiff was defamed in his capacity as the Prime Minister of the Republic of Singapore and the Chairman of GIC, and this should therefore warrant a higher award of damages.

    “The maintenance of the standing of the Plaintiff as the Prime Minister of Singapore and as Chairman of GIC is critical, and the public perception of his integrity will affect his effectiveness to govern and oversee GIC.”

    Mr Singh also said: “From the very first, the Defendant set out to wound. He knowingly and maliciously published a false and vicious libel towards the Plaintiff to inflict maximum injury. He then cynically capitalised on, and continues to exploit, that libel and the ensuing lawsuit to promote himself as a champion of free speech.”

    For instance, the 34-year-old blogger would have pulled the offending article from his blog if he was contrite,
    he said. Instead, he posted the letter of demand sent to him on his blog to draw more attention to the article, and wrote an accompanying article to “style himself as a martyr”.

    In his affidavit to the court,
    Mr Lee said Mr Ngerng made a “very serious and grave allegation”, which has “caused me distress and embarrassment”. He added that Mr Ngerng has “opportunistically used the libel in a calculated and cynical manner” to promote himself and cause further distress and injury to him.

    But Mr Ngerng is seeking the court to either award no damages, or award minimal or nominal general damages and/or not award any aggravated damages. In his court statement, Mr Ngerng, who paid S$29,000 in total costs to Mr Lee for the legal proceedings up to the summary judgment issued against him, said his case can be analysed in two other ways beyond the legal or technical factors affecting the assessment of damages he has to pay.

    The first relates to “the consequences of damages to free speech and democracy”, he said. The second is at the “socio-legal level”, where “we consider whether Singapore should move towards a more graceful society when its citizens share the same concerns with the Government in the welfare of Singaporeans and betterment of Singapore”.

     

    Source: www.todayonline.com