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| One of the Goree products found to contain dangerous mercury levels |
A Filipina domestic helper was acquitted of three charges at the close of a two-day trial today at Eastern Court and was even granted a reimbursement for the legal expenses she incurred to defend herself by maintaining she was misidentified.
Magistrate Minnie Wat ruled that the prosecution failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Aileen Apigo, 46 years old, committed the three offenses she was accused of: supplying unsafe consumer goods, supplying consumer goods which failed to comply with bilingual warning or caution requirement, and breach of condition of stay.
The charges arose from a raid on a store inside a building on Li Yuen Street West (otherwise known as Ale-ale) in Central on Aug. 2, 2024, in which Customs and Excise Department officers arrested Apigo, along with her co-accused, Pakistani Shah Syed Zaheer Mehmood, owner of the shop.
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| Basahin ang detalye! |
The two were charged with selling three units of Goree Beauty Cream with Lycopene, Avocado & Aloe vera; three Goree Day and Night Beauty Cream Oil Free and three Goree Gold 24K Beauty Cream – which were found to have high mercury content, and had no bilingual warning or caution required by the Consumer Goods Safety Regulation.
Apigo was also charged with breach of condition of stay because she was allegedly working as a sales lady for the shop while holding a domestic helper’s visa under an employment contract she signed with Harpaul Singh Brar.
During the trial, prosecutors presented as witnesses the two Customs officers who bought the nine items and then raided the shop, and who identified Apigo in court as the one who sold them the articles.
During cross examination, however, Apigo’s defense lawyer raised doubt about the accuracy of their recollections by asking what clothes she was wearing at the time, whether she had jewelry, what the color of her hair was, and her height.
Magistrate Wat said, “Defense is correct to point out that they had no supporting evidence, no CCTV.”
What they said was Apigo’s height (1.5 to 1.6 meters) does not match her actual height of 1.4 meters, she added.
She also noted conflicting testimonies; for example, while PW1 (prosecution witness 1) said Apigo did not leave the shop during their operation, PW2 said she went out to make a phone call.
So while it may be possible that the person they saw in the shop was the same as the defendant, the two Customs officers may have made a mistake in identifying Apigo, Magistrate Wat concluded.
