AUKLAND, New Zealand—A top leader of the Sikh community in New Zealand committed fraud and lied in his bid to win a local body election three years ago, a High Court jury in Auckland was told today.
“This fraud did take place,” Crown prosecutor Robin McCoubrey told the jury considering 38 charges against Labour Party member and Sikh leader Daljit Singh. Singh and other community members have all pleaded not guilty. They are accused of forging documents to change residential addresses showing that people from places such as Timaru and Tauranga appeared to live in the Otara-Papatoetoe Local Board area.
Singh was a candidate in the first super-city election in 2010. The trial is into its eighth week having heard from 200 witnesses.”We can see the end now,” Justice Mark Woolford told the 11-person jury this morning. Also on trial are Gurinder Atwal, Davinder Singh, Mandeep Singh, Virender Singh, Paramjit Singh, Malkeet Singh and Harmesh Singh. At the opening of the trial, McCoubrey said the accused had carried out the fraud to assist Singh’s campaign to be elected.
“In a sentence, he and his associates … carried out a fraud in the election system to try and assist Daljit Singh,” he said. At the time the Electoral Enrolment Centre (EEC) made it “rather easy” for people to go online and change their electoral address. He said Daljit Singh and Atwal, who he called Singh’s “right-hand man,” entered the EEC’s website using the names of Sikhs.
Once there they would change the address to the local board area where Daljit Singh was standing, and then download a declaration form that they signed and submitted. “The vast majority of those whose addresses were changed were unaware it was happening,” McCoubrey said.
The EEC noticed many voters were registered to the same address. They also found that they were coming from the same internet provider addresses, or same computers, and these were from Daljit Singh’s home and from Atwal. McCoubrey in closing told the jury there had been a lot of talk in the trial about the Punjabi community, but warned them against generalisations. Consider whether it actually happened rather than whether it was the thing that could have happened, he said.
A vast number of witnesses had given evidence showing that the person and the details on the EEC forms were correct, but the person on them did not sign the application.”It is fundamental and important to your deliberation.”
All of them were false documents, he said. The evidence had shown that the forms were downloaded “in a burst” onto Daljit Singh’s computer at home at 11pm one night. He got the individual details from somewhere. “He got them right, they did not have to guess.” None of the people on the forms had had anything to do with the actual forms. McCoubrey said Daljit Singh was an immigration consultant, justice of the peace and a marriage celebrant. It was open to the jury to note that he needed details to carry out those functions. Justice Woolford told the jury that the Crown closing was likely to take all day and would be followed by at least three “substantial” defence closing submissions.
