Funds for Ho's career 'used in same manner since 2003' Auditors aware building fund was being tapped but only queried if it was allowed (BT: 8 Feb 2014)

THE six people on trial from City Harvest Church could not have harboured criminal intent if they had been using funds for the pop career of Ms Ho Yeow Sun in the same manner since 2003, defence counsel said yesterday.

Likewise, audit firm Baker Tilly kept the same "state of mind" towards church accounts throughout the entire period it served the church, as well as the church-linked music production firm Xtron.

To prove their point, lawyers Edwin Tong and Andre Maniam, representing pastor Kong Hee and former church finance manager Serina Wee, respectively, cited e-mails from far back as 2003.

Mr Tong said: "The state of mind of Baker Tilly internally in the way they assess the materials given to them ... was treated in a way in 2003, and continued to be so into the period of the charges in question."

Kong, Wee and four others are on trial for varying charges of criminal breach of trust and falsifying accounts in allegedly funnelling about $50 million of the church's building fund monies into alleged bogus deals between 2007 and 2009.

In 2003, former churchgoer Roland Poon flagged concerns about the misuse of church funds, prompting a special audit helmed by churchgoer and then Baker Tilly managing partner Foong Daw Ching. He made a video statement that it was his "professional opinion that no church funds were ever used" in promoting the career of Ms Ho, who is Kong's wife.

Thus, the church had the impression it was business as usual, said the defence, even if the money came from a fund kept for a specific purpose.

Mr N. Sreenivasan, lawyer for deputy senior pastor Tan Ye Peng, yesterday argued that Baker Tilly was aware the building fund was being tapped for Ms Ho's career.

But auditors only queried if this was permitted under church Constitution, and did not raise other concerns.

Prosecution witness Foong Ai Fang, audit manager for the church for financial years 2002 to 2010, and Xtron from FY2003 to FY2009, said it was "not necessary to consider" the church's point of view because the investments were on Xtron's books.

She also agreed with Mr Maniam that the church was "forthcoming and cooperative with audit queries".

Parties came to a head yesterday over several documents the defence wanted to look at, but prosecutors said were not relevant. They include the firm's working papers for the FY2009 audit for Xtron, aborted after the probe was launched. These were not seized by the authorities. But working papers for the church's incomplete FY2010 audit are before the court.

Mr Tong said the FY2009 Xtron working papers would show "the auditors' thinking as regards significant issues from the prior years' audits, experiences that they have gained and what they intend to look at".

Chief District Judge See Kee Oon allowed the request. The trial continues on Monday.