A former yoghurt store worker decided to represent himself in court in the appeal hearing of his earlier sentence of 6 years corrective training for a charge of cheating and forgery as well as a few other offences.
Teo Ziqi, 32, explained that his lawyer had pulled out from representing him in the last minute so he decided to take up the job himself and he even impressed the judge with his competence.
Judge of Appeal Chao Hick Tin was impressed with Mr Teo’s knowledge of the law and his ability to apply it despite having no training in law. Mr Teo had simply read law books and past cases while he was in remand for the past two years.
Justice Chao even remarked that the Teo was “obviously someone with brains” and he said that he hopes Teo will use his brain for lawful pursuits in future.
Teo had originally been convicted of cheating and sentenced to 2 years in jail and six years of corrective training. This is often seen by offenders as a harsher penalty as they are unlikely to be granted early release from corrective training even with good behaviour.
Corrective Training is usually given to repeat offenders who have in the past been convicted at least twice with offences that carried minimum jail terms of two years or more.
Teo argued that this did not apply to him and therefore he should not have been sentenced to corrective training.
He is currently serving time for his 2012 offence but Teo had also previously been convicted of cheating in 2002, 2003 and 2010.
Cheating is now a charge with a minimum jail term of 2 years and so the court had originally found that Teo was a repeat offender with crimes that carry 2 year sentences or more and therefore he should be given corrective training.
Teo argued that his 2002 and 2003 offences did not actually satisfy the minimum 2 year jail term condition as they had been committed before 2007 when the criminal law was changed to increase the penalty for cheating. Before then, the minimum jail term was only 1 year.
Teo said that because of this, only his 2010 offence satisfied the 2 year minimum and therefore he only had 1 prior conviction and not the two usually required for corrective training.
The prosecution had also argued that Teo had also had another offence in 2003 of impersonating a public officer. This is an offence which carries up to 2 years in jail.
However, Teo argued that his offence was a small offence and he was only fined for that crime in 2003 so it shouldn’t count.
Justice Chao agreed with Teo.
Teo also pointed out that a corrective training report has already assessed him as low to moderate risk of reoffending.
Teo also said that he was remorseful for his crime and the sentence of 6 years corrective training was too lengthy.
“I will be separated from society for eight years. What skills can I gain in prison? I really think I deserve a second chance,” said Teo.
He asked for the corrective training to be removed so that he could “integrate back to society and reunite with my family as soon as possible”.
Justice Chao reserved his judgement citing that he must review the district court’s original decision in sentencing Teo.
