A John Doe inquest which was expected to see the mother of a missing police detainee grilled over her statements, had the heat turned on a policeman instead.

Chief Inspector Nik Ros Azhan Nik Abdul Hamid, from the Petaling police station, was today bombarded with questions on how he recorded statements from witnesses.

Prior to the hearing, the missing detainee's mother, G Sara Lily, was to be quizzed by Magistrate Nazran Mohd Sham - acting as coroner - over the alleged discrepancies in her statements pertaining to her son G Francis Udayappan's case.

Francis has been missing since last April and Sara has accused the police of foul play. This charge has, however, been denied.

The inquest is being held to determine the identity of a highly decomposed body fished out from the Klang river two months later. Sara identified the corpse as that of her son based on a tattoo and teeth deformity but DNA tests have shown otherwise.

'Glaring' differences

This morning, Sara's lawyer M Puravelan pointed out several 'glaring irregularities' in the manner his client's statement was recorded by Nik Ros.

The police officer had initially insisted that the statement he recorded from Sara on June 2, 2004 was 'accurate' and had been noted in a book that contained 'Pol 51C' forms which were used to record statements.

Puravelan said the first irregularity concerned the numbering of Sara Lily's five-page statement, in which number '4' was missing between pages '3' and '5'. Nik Ros claimed that it was merely a mistake on his part in numbering the documents.

Another concerned the lettering on top of the first two pages which contained the words 'sambungan percakapan' (statement continued) in small letters.

While the third page had the same words printed in large capital letters, the fourth page did not contain these words at all.

Puravelan also said despite the numbering of the pages, the written statements did not continue from the bottom of page two from line 40 to line 41 on page three but resumed from line one as if it was a new page.

May not be 'accurate'

Conceding the inconsistencies, Nik Ros then admitted to the magistrate that the statements were not made in the official statement recording book that he had brought to Sara's house, but on loose paper instead.

He also conceded that his recording of Sara's statements may not be completely 'accurate'.

"After I finished recording, I read the statement to her again, and then I gave the forms to her and she asked her daughter to read them to her," said Nik Ros.

Sara Lily (left) had earlier in the day testified that Nik Ros had not asked for any of her family members to read the statement after it was recorded.

Sara - who is facing the prospect of impeachment for allegedly making conflicting statements - has maintained that she was not responsible for the alleged discrepancies.

One contradiction in the statement, in particular, surrounded her insistence that the body retrieved from the Klang River was that of her son Francis.

This contrasted with a statement attributed to her by Nik Ros that she was 'not sure (of the identity) and that she would have to ask her daughter.

"I had never said 'my husband and I saw the said body and I was not sure (of its identity), as such I have to ask my daughter.' I am sure I did not say it. I had said that it was my son," she told the magistrate.

Hearing resumes on Sept 21 and 28.