Crimewatch 2011 Episode 6

Crimewatch (since 1986), produced by:
National Crime Prevention Council, Singapore and Singapore Police Force.
Original Broadcast Channel: Mediacorp TV

This episode was shot last summer.


In this scene, I was coached by the director Joey Cheung, to blow my top and be fuming mad about the club premises being broken in for 3 times in a month. Sporting that formidable beard helped in looking angrier than the character actually was. The beard was a remnant from a feature film character (in "Back Alley Bulls") where I played the role of a big time gangster.  It was not a requirement for this club manager role. :)


This angry scene was there  to allow the investigating officers to exercise restrain and the opportunity to demonstrate to the audience, their patience in dealing with the difficult members of the public they meet sometimes. The two investigating officers in the scene are real police officers and were surprisingly soft spoken. Actually too soft spoken for the sound man to pick up their dialogues! :) I don't know if that is their normal pitch in an actual crime scene or was it that they were new with acting in front of a camera and crew. :) Anyway, we had to repeat the take a few times. It was ok, they are police officers, not actors, and one of them is on air only for the first time.

The story is about a real life single-mum, Ng Bee Hong, who was given a job at the club as a cashier but was tempted to steal the money, foolishly thinking that there will not be enough audit trails to nail her down quickly. What was more silly was that she even took her daughter to commit the crime together. The story ended with the police cornering and arresting them in their apartment  in the presence of her lived in boyfriend, who was also living off the finances of the wrong-doing Bee Hong.  Bee Hong was sentenced to 26 months jail, the boy friend to 3 months jail and the little girl let off without a charge given the circumstances.

This  real life story is one of the cases that the two investigating officers (that you see in the video) handled. Kudos to them. By the way, investigating officers lead very busy lives. I know that through my time teaching them in the Advanced Diploma in Police Studies at Temasek Polytechnic some years ago. 


So the next time you have to meet an investigating officer in a scene, be nice to them, don't blow your top like how Mr Wong did!

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