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SINGAPORE: The lapse in the police's handling of four-year-old Megan Khung’s fatal abuse case occurred as a result of two officers being "under pressure" and not following "established operating procedure", said Minister of State for Home Affairs Goh Pei Ming on Wednesday (Nov 5).
Speaking in parliament, Mr Goh said this "serious breach" resulted in a "tragic outcome".
"Our frontline police officers bear a heavy responsibility to protect ... lives. They take this responsibility seriously, and perform their duties with commitment and professionalism," he added.
"The demands on our police officers continue to increase. They often have to make difficult judgment calls every day in the course of their duties. When under pressure, mistakes can happen."
The police will learn from this, and reinforce procedures as well as training for their officers, added Mr Goh.
Mr Goh, who is also Minister of State for Social and Family Development, was responding to several questions from Members of Parliament (MPs) who had asked how the police handle such cases and what can be done better in future.
Both officers were investigated for the disciplinary offence of neglect of duty and have been disciplined internally. The investigation officer (IO) has since resigned, and the officer-in-charge was subjected to formal disciplinary actions, found guilty, and fined. The officer-in-charge is still serving in the SPF.
Megan died in February 2020. She was abused for months by her mother Foo Li Ping and her then-boyfriend Brian Wong, before the latter inflicted a fatal punch on the girl.
Foo was sentenced to 19 years' jail for abusing her daughter and helping to burn her corpse. Wong was jailed for 30 years and given 17 strokes of the cane for his role in Megan’s death, along with other drug crimes.
Mr Goh said that there were two rounds of police reports filed, with the first was made in January 2020 by Megan’s grandmother. Further police reports were made later that year in July by Megan’s grandmother and father.
He added that the IO who handled the first police report and her supervisor had failed to follow the police’s procedures to escalate the case to regular case review sessions for monitoring and guidance.
"The IO had assessed this as a case of child discipline with low safety concerns based on the information that she was presented with at that time," Mr Goh added.
"Following the report, the IO attempted to contact Megan’s mother over the next two weeks, but could not reach her. She did not follow up beyond that because she was then redeployed for COVID-19 related duties."
Despite this, the case would typically have been followed up on if the IO and her supervisor had escalated the case to the regular case review sessions, said Mr Goh.
"The subsequent police reports concerning Megan were referred to the regular case review sessions. This eventually led to the discovery of Megan’s death and arrest of the perpetrators," he added.
HOW POLICE DEAL WITH FAMILY VIOLENCE CASES
Last month, a report looking into Megan's death found multiple lapses and shortcomings among agencies that handled her case.
Several key lapses identified in the report included officers who did not follow protocols, the mischaracterisation of Megan’s injuries by social workers, as well as the failure of police officers and child protection specialists in following up on Megan’s case after the information was made known to them.
There was also a “lack of clear understanding and communication among the agencies” involved in Megan’s case, the report found.
Mr Goh pointed out that the police have made several enhancements, including the introduction of a Family Violence Training Package for all frontline and investigation officers.
This is so they adopt a "sensitive approach" to family violence cases, including child abuse cases, and to recognise and escalate high-risk cases to the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF), he added.
In 2023, the police also formed Family Violence Teams (FVT) at all land divisions to "give focus" to family violence cases, Mr Goh said. FVT officers get specialised training which aims to equip them with the knowledge and skillsets to handle these cases.
When the police come across a case of suspected child abuse, or when MSF receives an urgent report on high-risk cases, officers will work with MSF protective service for safety planning and social intervention for the family and child.
This may involve the activation of MSF's round-the-clock Domestic Violence Emergency Response Team to provide immediate help to high-risk domestic violence cases with immediate safety concerns.
The police have also "harnessed technology" for the case reviews, said Mr Goh, and have implemented solutions to trigger automatic notifications to IOs and their supervisors to complete time-sensitive tasks promptly.
In his speech, Mr Goh also laid out the police's procedures to guide the follow-up to missing person reports.
He said that priority is given to missing vulnerable persons as they may be at higher risk, regardless of the duration they have been missing for.
Such cases are escalated to the regular case review sessions with supervisors for monitoring and guidance, and it is "standard procedure" for the police to work with other government agencies to locate missing persons, including sharing the data of these individuals, added Mr Goh.
The police do not track the duration taken to close a case, he said.
There are many factors that can affect the length of an investigation, he added. This includes the wide range of offences with "varying complexities", as well as the need to work with different partners as part of the investigation process.
"There are internal controls in place to ensure that cases are followed up promptly. These include a daily case review process for supervisors to provide guidance to the cases, and multiple levels of supervision and regular checks throughout the investigation," said Mr Goh.
"But the police have also continued to strengthen these processes and systems."
