Corpun file 9793

The Straits Times, Singapore, 15 October 2002

NSman jailed for sex with girl, 13

They met on telephone chatline and had sex on HDB landing

By Selina Lum

THE girl was about two months short of her 14th birthday when a national serviceman had sex with her on a public staircase landing.

Full-time NSman Yeo Boon Shiong, 23, had been chatting with her for a month before that - after they got to know each other through a telephone chatline.

On July 12, they met at Bugis Junction. They then walked to a block of flats on Waterloo Street, where they had sex on a secluded 16th-floor staircase landing.

The next day, afraid that she might become pregnant, the teenager made a police report to say she had been raped.

A medical check-up showed fresh tears in her hymen.

Yeo was later charged in court, but he jumped bail.

Then, nearly a year after the incident, the investigating officer in the case spotted Yeo at a foodcourt in Suntec City.

Yeo ran away, but Station Inspector Yew Ai Choo caught up with him. Yeo struggled and punched the officer with both fists.

Yesterday, Yeo, who is married with a child, pleaded guilty to two charges - of committing statutory rape and hurting a public servant.

He was sentenced to six years and nine months in jail and ordered to be given six strokes of the cane.

His lawyer had said in mitigation that on the day of the rape, Yeo was at Bugis Junction when the girl called him. She asked to meet him.

The lawyer said that they had gone to the Housing Board block to talk, but Yeo had started to caress her and 'one thing led to another'.

Both were willing partners, he said, and Yeo had not threatened or forced the girl.

District Judge Tey Hsun Hang said: 'The young girl is certainly precocious. She was probably also love-smitten then.'

However, he said, sexual intercourse with a girl under the age of 14 is considered rape, even if she consents.

The law is clear on this and 'places the onus on the male adult to exercise restraint, discipline and self-control'.

Referring to guidelines laid down by the Chief Justice, he added that he had to 'send out a clear signal to the public that men who engage in sexual intercourse with girls under 14, do so at their own peril'.

Corpun file 9794

The Straits Times, 16 October 2002

Teens used fake notes for purchases

A TEENAGER received a stack of counterfeit $50 notes from a person he peddled drugs to.

Lin Zhiqiang, 18, realised that the notes were fake - they all bore one of two numbers, either 1CZ365519 or 1CZ365522.

He decided to keep five for himself and gave his 20-year-old girlfriend, Yeng Chiah Yi, another five.

She passed some of the notes to three of her teenage friends.

The youths used the notes to pay taxi fares and to buy cigarettes, drinks and tidbits at provision shops and coffeeshops.

On June 10, Lin almost got away when he paid taxi driver Goh Siang Joo with one of the notes.

But the cabby realised that the note was fake, and returned to where he had dropped the youth off to get back the $44 he had given him as change.

He also called the police, who arrested Lin at a pub in Gemmil Lane and found two more counterfeit notes on him.

Lin admitted in a district court to using the counterfeit notes.

He also pleaded guilty to trafficking in Ecstasy pills, and possessing and consuming methamphetamines.

Lin's lawyer said in mitigation that his client used the fake notes as he was short of cash.

The total loss by the victims amounted to only $82, he said.

On Monday, Lin was sentenced to 9½ years' jail and five strokes of the cane.

Yeng was sent for reformative training.

The cases against the three other teenagers are pending.

Corpun file 9832

The Straits Times, 24 October 2002

In prison for helping lover

By Dawn Wong

A HOMELESS woman's love for a younger, Sri Lankan man led her to prison yesterday.

The 50-year-old divorcee had let her 32-year-old boyfriend use her name to register a cleaning-services company.

But he was an overstayer, and he employed illegal workers.

Yesterday, Tan Ai Choo was jailed seven months for helping her boyfriend employ four Sri Lankan nationals.

Vijeratna Pradeep Harsha was sentenced to 11½ months' jail and four strokes of the cane for hiring the illegals and for overstaying.

The couple were caught when immigration officers raided entertainment and food outlets at Boat Quay, Tanjong Pagar and Bendemeer on Sept 19.

One of the illegal workers they arrested identified Vijeratna, who ran Blue Oceanic Enterprise, as his employer.

A district court heard that the company had been registered originally under carpark cashier Jamaludin Ahmad's name, while Vijeratna was in charge of the business.

When Jamaludin wanted to de-register the company, Vijeratna - a foreigner on a short-term visit pass - needed to find someone legitimate to take over the proprietorship.

He found that someone in Tan, the Singaporean girlfriend he had met a few months earlier.

Tan, who lived on the corridor outside unit 04-01 of Block 50, a flatted factory at Kallang Bahru, used to work in this area, but was by this time working for her boyfriend as a cleaning contractor.

She offered him her help in July because she wanted him to be able to remain in Singapore.

When The Straits Times visited her 'home' yesterday, her belongings were sitting neatly along a wall of the corridor.

Factory workers said the woman had been sleeping and eating there for at least two years. They would give her a few dollars occasionally so she could buy a meal or a drink.

Said production administrator George Yeo, 43: 'She takes her baths in the toilets here.

'Our company pities her, so we let her stay.

'She doesn't talk much.'

He and his colleagues said they had never seen Vijeratna, who rented a room from a 68-year-old woman who lives alone in a three-room flat on Henderson Road.