~by: Ghui~
It comes as no surprise that many Singaporeans are outraged by the news that Kiwi, Robert Dahlberg has jumped bail (http://forum.channelnewsasia.com/showthread.php?36942-Kiwi-bail-jumper-won%92t-return-to-S%92pore-to-face-charges).
Dahlberg was allegedly involved in a drunken attack on two taxi drivers and two passengers at Suntec City in April last year. Violence is definitely not to be condoned and Dahlberg must face the just punishment for his crime.
While many netizens have decried the judge’s decision to grant bail in this instance, my concern is not directed at why bail was granted but the conditions of bail.
Most offences allow the accused the right to bail in Singapore (see HERE). It is therefore not unusual for someone like Dahlberg to be granted bail.
Once bail is granted, the law requires that the person released on bail must not leave Singapore without the permission of the Court or the police officer. Sometimes, the accused may also be asked to surrender his passport to the police. Given that Dalhberg is a foreign national, the temptation to “skip bail” and return to his own country must be strong. Under such circumstances, I wonder why his passport was not impounded as a condition of bail?
I can only assume that the surrender of his passport was not a condition of bail for Dahlberg given that he managed to leave the country.
The million-dollar question is therefore not why bail was granted in the first place but why the surrender of Dahlberg’s passport was not a condition of bail.
–
Latest: Robert Dahlberg may end up on interpol list (see HERE).
–
picture credit: Singapore Democrats
HELP keep the voice of TOC alive!
If you like this article, please consider a small donation to help theonlinecitizen.com stay alive. Please note that we can only accept donations from Singaporeans. Thank you for your assistance.Do you have a flair for writing? Volunteer with us. Email us your full name and contact details to theonlinecitizen@gmail.com
Obviously they wanted him to get out so as expats get special treatment. Wasn’t it bloody obvious what he would do once he got his passport?
thought he applied to go back to his country and supposed to retun by a certain date….
It was approved and hence he have his passport to leave Sg…
If I’m not wrong, it’s because he has no means to remain in the country, and I’d guess he made a convincing case to the police of his financial state. Also, and probably more importantly, he was not a political offender like Alan Shadrake, who was held in the country regardless of his means. Shows you where the country’s priorities lie.
Good to speak up & ask. But why u write to wrong channel…
onced me kaki who was charged for grevious bodily harm..section 325..his passport was impounded by the polismen in shortpants pendin investigation…
ere angmor are different..their cork is BIGGER…
“Sometimes, the accused may also be asked to surrender his passport to the police.”
“May”, “may, “may”. So?
Fights are common. How does it serve us to house and feed the drunk in prison at taxpayers’ expense. Locals no choice. Might it not be better if he self-deports (and cannot return given that he jumps bail) and the State forfeits the money for good use.
dumb question.
if you don’t know the reason why. it’s better for it to stay that way.
in all countries, there are laws for citizens, and laws for foreigners working or holidaying.
the way you phrase it, it makes it seem that the courts are stupid. you should have your brain examined to see if you’re a smart singaporean, or a dumb singaporean
This guy is NOT the only guy who skipped bail. There is ANOTHER CASE, drunk “foreign talent” at The Bayshore Condominium, went on a spree jumping on cars in the basement car park, ripping cars, kicking them, breaking windscreens. Caught, brought in for case, bailed but given passport, skipped bail and ran.
It is a recognition that sometimes justice -however blind- need to be tempered by compassion.
Moreover,SG so-called use NZ land for their Artillery live firing ground.Too long detain him could cause bilateral ties.
very very sad to hear story like that i dun know what is becoming of Singapore.
Many of these expats, are not very savvy ones. The savvy ones who have relocated from countries to countries know how important it is, to keep their rice bowls, as returning home is actually far worse off.
These expats who commit these ridiculous acts typically are the so-called 2nd and 3rd tier expats who have less than 8 years of experience.
They can’t handle the sudden surge in remuneration package from what they were paid in their home countries, and turn out behaving badly when they are here in Singapore. Go wild and get drunk, and act out their white supremacy behaviour. The good expats totally frown on these sort of behaviour. They give expats a bad name.
Eh kei1309,
By your logic, we should just accept everything and never question right? In that case, how do we hold the lawmakers/government accountable? Questions must always be asked so that authorities take responsilbity for their actions and realise that the people will not just sit back and accept everything!
Wah Clown, if there were really the case that he applied to go back to his country and we approved it on the promise that he would come back, then it is either a “kelong” situation or a “dumb and dumberer” situation. Both need to be highlighted and questioned!
The father of Dahlberg, when commenting on his son’s jumping bail, told news media in New Zealand that Dahlberg was at the wrong place at the wrong time and in the wrong country…but there was nothing wrong with Dahlberg’s violence and crime. Is this what Western’s values is all about?
Dahlberg is a scum, because his parents had bought him up as a scum!
Singapore is a capitalist country. The government needs money to run the judicial system. He wins and Government win. Win/Win situation.
The father-mother son is at the right place to bully the citizens.
If the guy jumped bail, interpol listing will make him surrender soon. Alternatively, go after his employer in Sg since company was the one who applied for his employment pass?
Good riddance! I don’t want any tax money to be spend on jailing & caning this ang moh scum.
But next time put the bail at S$100,000 so we can profit more!!
Dahlberg’s crime is trivial, so no reason for our government to hold on to his passport. In the UK, people are being let off with even worse crimes. Our government is one that acts rationally and does not jeopardize international relations. This is called looking at the big picture, something many commenters clearly do not know.
The father who condoned his scumbag son’s behaviour cannot be any better. Only a scumbag father will produce a scumbag son
Govt has the ‘angmoh duaki’ mentality. I don’t even trust SG law and police at all.
The minister in charge should resign.
But in “swingapore”.. they will give him a promotion and a raise in salary.
After all…this is Singapore!!!
I can only think such is an act of STUPIDITY from the court, unless there is other hidden agenda not convenient to be made known to public.
What about the Romanian Diplomat whose drunk driving took away 1 or 2 lives? Anyone know if he has been punished?
Regardless, this criminal has caused hurt and is dangerous. Put him on Interpol’s list – make his life hell until he returns here to face the music – and this time, don’t forget to impound his passport … or swim across to JB
traveller 3 January 2012
Dahlberg’s crime is trivial, so no reason for our government to hold on to his passport. In the UK, people are being let off with even worse crimes
………..
ow bout i go london raped your angmor girlfriend..skinned her cats and whipped all petdog…
trivial matter right?
Dahlberg’s crime is trivial, so no reason for our government to hold on to his passport. In the UK, people are being let off with even worse crimes. Our government is one that acts rationally and does not jeopardize international relations. This is called looking at the big picture, something many commenters clearly do not know
————————————–
Hahaha….your comments is one of the most stupid I have seen yet…LOL
are you a Foreigner?
I hope the issue is raised in Parliament. Now that there are several Opposition MPs, I hope they query the Govt and also criticise the apparent double standards when it comes to handling cases by ang-mohs.
It makes a mockery of the laws of Spore. And now so much time and effort has to be spent to try to catch him.
Bail may be given to them but the law should be changed to automatic compound the passports of all non-citizens.
It only make common sense as they don’t live here and is flight risk.
Didn’t know our police and the prosecutors are so stupid and slow to realize it.
Now all Foreigners knows that they can misbehave badly and still can flee after they are granted bail.
Now isn’t it DUMB not to compound their passports ? !
I guess this guy has set a fine example for the next FT whom decides he wanna bash up some local & get away. Oh well, I guess it’s one of those things that will be swept under the carpet & soon be forgotten until the next GE!
The crime is not that severe to warrant surrendering of passport. Especially when handling foreigners, there is always the diplomatic ties to consdier, though they cannot sheild them from punishment.
Though I am sad that he was allowed to skip bail, actions must be taken with NZ to make sure he is returned to pace the punishment.
Trivial? Because he beat up someone of lesser importance? What if it was someone of significance or linked to someone of importance? Bet the government would throw the whole book at him!
Of course there will also be two kinds of response in any situation. Some will comment that he must be severely dealt will and some will comment to look at the bigger picture. Both sides make sense in one way or another.
Being magnanimous is good, but to be overly magnanimous and let others take advantage of, abuse and laugh upon is somehow unacceptable.
While diplomatic ties are important to Singapore, it is important to any country as well. Singapore shouldn’t always put itself at the mercy of others and in this particular case, violence is not a small issue and fault is at the other party. Singapore has all reasons to give pressure and pursue the matter.
It is good to review how other countries operate and manage their countries and it is also important to not only learn from them but improvise and reinvent the systems to suit our country, and not to just follow them blindly. Moreover, one cannot use one method to tackle all situation, it is akin to studying blindly.
Education has sometimes ruin peoples’ ability to think and apply solutions based on situations, ruin the morals and characters of a person. The intelligence and ability of a person is not measured by how much he achieve academically but by the way he does things. It is disappointing to see how the world has come to.
Once a jolly hangman, proved its point. Our complacent court has reached a stage beyond hope. Our security has been paid its price. If Kangaroo court think Alan Shadrake has make a mockery out of our legal systems, than this New Zealand Kiwi proved Alan is right in every sense of the way. My confident in Singapore double-standard legal systems has reached its bottomost.
IMHO : An Inconvenient Truth
There is certainly ‘more at large’ than Dickie Dull Bird skipping bail and the incompetence and total failure of the courts to take possession of his passport. We just do not know the “inconvenient truth.” And the sad truth and practice of the PAP government? Us Singaporeans will long continue to be treated with a serrated and poisoned paint brush when a picture is painted. We are after all Prime Second Class Citizens. So so so sad.
Bring him back in.. Squeeze him dry of his money and then feed him to the dogs/deport him. Keep him in jail is use less, max is just whip him and deport him, whatever it is.. Deport his Butt out!
Law minister Shanmugan got time to cover ah seng no time to do proper job?
Wtf? so no justice for those they smacked???
I don’t care if he’s jailed or not. What happens to those victims?? Are they compensated? Are they happy with this? How can we let this kinda stuff happen?
Aren’t we supposed to become a hub for international law? Aren’t we supposed to be a country that boasts a top-class legal system???
I don’t want any wayang appeasement by the government, I want the goddammed government to GOVERN.
If someone walks into your house and slaps your grandpa, father, and violates your sister, will you just let him leave and go back to his country without any reparation or recourse for your family members???
As the ‘parents’ of our nation that is supposed to take care of us, how can you let people just walk into our home (singapore) accost us, and then get away with it???
Will you let me get away with it if I walk into your Prime Minister’s home and slap him and his children???
@ dumbass: “Bail may be given to them but the law should be changed to automatic compound the passports of all non-citizens.”
It is impound not compound… and why should Singapore automatically “compound” the passport of all foreigners? Only those who have been proven guilty of committing a serious offense and are at risk of fleeing should be considered.
Clearly no brain. If people like you are in government clearly Singapore will be even worst than North Korea.
@impound not compound
Of course their passport have to be impounded.
If not any foreigners will do likewise like this scumbag and flee if they still have their passport with him.
Clearly you have NO brain.
If a foreigner pig beat you to a pulp was caught but then escape punishment by fleeing.
I wonder if you will sing the same song ?!
Impound not compounp
Only those who have been proven guilty of committing a serious offense and are at risk of fleeing should be considered.
Clearly no brain. If people like you are in government clearly Singapore will be even worst than North Korea.
………………
wah i liked you alot…you certainly welcome ALL angmors with BIGcork…
in singapoor..the judical system automacticaly marked you GUILTY tiil proven amountin to an aquittal not amountin to a discharge…
you do know what i meant? if you don’t try beatin up a REAL angmor(i did that) in self defence…
in north korea..all angmors are treated as spies and would end up as clobber makin high heels platform shoes…
Not only is Dahlberg a thug and a criminal, but he’s also a bloody coward. I wonder how he looks himself in the mirror everyday.
This is not the first case Francis Seow did the same as well – lowdown scum and yet no one is complaining! Btw, this guy is just one there are more taking flight like the Romania guy, Pinoys group from the banks, Thai chap, malaysian chap that walk across causeway not even needing a passport etc. Why complain now, take it easy man.
There are 2 lawa in sg, one is to torture locals and the other is good treat angmo and ft.
There is no value , no profit, no future to protect a taxi driver,cos they are the low class citizen !!!
2nd class citizen, pls accept it, this is your gov and always treat others as priority
if this case happened on LHL children , do you know what will happen ?
Long long ago, sg gov Whip US citizen, that is a sg i like , but now, LHL is just a bull shit !!!
And this is why we are pegging our minister’s salary to the top 1,000 Singapore earners? Rewind to how easily Mas Selamat STROLLED out of the Whitley Detention Centre and you realise that we are paying top dollar (highest in the world) but still getting monkeys!
Forget Pei Ling, I’m talking about Kan Seng, MBT and many other white-shirted goons. If you justify your out-of-this-world ministers’ salaries with “pay peanuts, get monkeys” logic, we Singaporeans demand much fewer boo-boos compared to any other country in the world.
They have lost the right to compare themselves to any other country because their salaries cannot be compared (not by a long shot)to any other country on this planet!
If they still insist on getting the highest salaries in the world, they better start thinking about performing and using their salary as a yardstick to realise the level of performance Singaporeans are expecting from them.
While all Singaporeans were focusing on the SMRT fiasco, another less prominent ministerial screw-up had also taken place.
A private school had closed down and it emerged that the operator of the school, a Chinese national who had recently received her PR, had similar problems with the MOE with previous schools she was running. Someone asked, in the ST Forum, why the MOE had allowed this person to be running a private school, considering her past record. As usual MOE gave a vague and unjustified response.
When I read about this incident, I remembered another similar case, once again involving the MOE. I’m sure many of us remember the Nanyang Institute of Management (NIM) case which closed down and left many international students stranded.
At that time, I was attending a berakfast session for the Association of Private Schools and a few people were asking a lot of questions about NIM and the MOE. They were saying that NIM was run a Chinese national by the name of Evelyn and that she had suffered similar results with other schools prior to running NIM.
They were also asking, not just how the MOE had allowed her to operate a school despite her past record, but more importantly, how NIM had been awarded the Singapore Quality Class (SQC).
For so long, we Singaporeans have been blindfolded by the ST and all we knew was what we were told by the ST was how super-efficient Singapore was.
Another related issue was what happened to NIM after its collapse. Spring Singapore took over the management and immediately conferred on itself the SQC. Shouldn’t an award be earned – shouldn’t they have granted themselves the award after a period of time when they proved themselves worthy of the award? How can a “new” untested school be awarded the SQC?
We all know how the government have asked Singaporeans to be more entrepreneurial while going into business themselves and “cornering the market” in many areas of business. They have done the same for education.
In the last couple of years, they have squeezed most smaller private schools out of business by not awarding them the required certifications and awards. Look at the private education picture in Singapore now and you’ll see that many of them are government-linked like PSB and ASB. Others have “harder-to-find” government links but they have definitely cornered the education market.
They would respond that they had to step in to protect Singapore’s reputation as an education hub but many of the schools collapsing can be attributed back to the MOE who were allowing anyone to apply for and operate a school, even those with poor, dubious or even failed track records.
Everywhere we go, be it lining up for ferry tickets or dining places, the white trash seems to get away with murder.
Now someone caused hurt to our citizens and had conveniently left the country in the name of “jumped bail”. Lets see the ST publish the consequences of his actions, if any.
What is our govt doing? Seems like we are reverting to colonial times without a shot being fired.
It does not help with our SPG’s opening their legs to anything white.
the PAP million dollars ministers said that it keep Singaporean from becoming maid in another country
but it’s seem like we being treated like 2nd class citizen and beaten, and runover by cars driven by foreigners in our own country
singapore ACTRESS HOT ASS HIDDEN CAM RECORD BOLD SEXY CLIP
http://goo.gl/yyEXI
Because he is not in any opposition parties.