Cop unlawfully obtained info for friend who later threatened woman behind police report
Shaffiq Alkhatib
The Straits Times
April 27, 2026
A Traffic Police (TP) investigation officer accessed the Ministry of Home Affairs’ (MHA) computer systems without authority and shared his findings with a friend, who had a police report against him.
Shivasuria Maniam Kesaval, 28, shared the information with Brayden Ong Ying Shan, 25, who then made a death threat against the woman responsible for the report.
District Judge Lim Tse Haw had, after a trial, convicted Shivasuria of four counts of misusing a computer system and one count of an offence under the Official Secrets Act (OSA).
The judge also found Ong guilty of criminal intimidation and an offence under the OSA.
He still has multiple other pending charges for offences including forgery.
On April 27, Shivasuria was initially expected to be sentenced while Ong was slated to plead guilty to at least one of his pending charges. Their cases have been adjourned to July.
In an earlier statement, the police said that Shivasuria was suspended in August 2022.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Jeremy Bin told the court that the two men have been friends since 2019 and Ong knew what Shivasuria’s job was.
A woman who was in a relationship with Ong later told the authorities that the latter had been driving without a licence, the court heard.
On July 12, 2022, two other TP officers, who were Shivasuria’s colleagues, ambushed Ong following her tip-off.
Ong’s car was towed away to an impound lot, and he called Shivasuria to inform him about what had happened. Shivasuria then accessed the MHA systems and performed searches between July 14 and 26, 2022, said the DPP.
Court documents stated that through these searches, he uncovered information including the woman’s personal particulars and the original report she had made against Ong.
Shivasuria also repeatedly met Ong during this period.
The DPP said that Shivasuria had also told Ong when the first incident report was made, and Ong used this information to correctly deduce that the woman was the one who had alerted the authorities.
The prosecutor added: “On July 15, 2022, (Ong told the woman) that he would ‘murder’ whoever reported him to the police and sent (her) a photograph of Shivasuria, while telling (her) ‘I got a TP friend that is high ranking’.
“(Ong further instructed the woman) to provide the names of her family members, insinuating that he would have Shivasuria perform checks on them to see if they were the culprits.”
The woman lodged a police report in late July 2022.
In his submissions, DPP Bin stressed that officers are not allowed to use government resources, including screening systems, to gain unauthorised access to information linked to friends.
The prosecutor also said that everyone in Shivasuria’s chain of command, up to his head of investigations, had testified that he was not authorised to perform any searches regarding Ong.
Shivasuria was also not authorised to be involved in investigations concerning Ong.
Both Ong and Shivasuria are not represented by lawyers.
Court documents stated that the two men claimed they had never discussed matters linked to the first incident report, as well as the investigation against Ong.
Instead, both claimed that Shivasuria had merely told Ong to “cooperate with investigations”.
DPP Bin, however, said that the pair had lied repeatedly to benefit themselves.
“In contrast to the wealth of evidence against them... they have produced no evidence supporting their cases. They are witnesses without credit, and their defences hold no weight,” he added.
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