The name ungagged is Colin Chua Yi Jin.

Colin Chua Yi Jin. That’s his name. He’s 23. He’s a student from a top British university. I trust he’s from an affluent family. He faced 11 charges of filming voyeuristic videos of several women. He had also pleaded guilty on July 29 to seven counts of insulting the women’s modesty and an offence under the Films Act. 

Today’s news however is about a gag order being lifted. It was lifted by CJ Menon. More on that later.

Here is a sample of what he did. 

On Dec 2, 2015, in a hotel at Orchard Road, he “placed a recording device in the toilet and it recorded a video of her showering.” On Dec 23, 2016, he was hosting a celebration at his then residence, and he placed the device in the toilet and “filmed the second victim relieving herself.” 

When he was first charged, altogether close to 20 charges, a gag order was imposed to protect the victims’ identities. That gag order extended to hide his name and Colin had anonymity by his side. 

Altogether, there were 12 victims. 10 of them supported lifting the gag order. They wanted Colin to be known. But, 2 of them did not support it.

 

Subsequently, one of them changed her mind. And some of the charges were also withdrawn, which included the only victim remaining, objecting to lifting the gag order. 

With the revised number of 11 charges preferred against Colin, all 11 victims unanimously asked for anonymity to be removed. Now, Colin stands “naked” before his victims, the law and in the public eye. 

Colin however was not happy. He instructed his lawyers to object to the disclosure of his name. With a bright future before him, he dreaded the exposure of his past with his name and face on it. 

CJ Menon heard the objection and dismissed it. He said that gag orders are to protect the victims. “A gag order has nothing to do with the benefit of accused person...His interest counts for nothing.” 

Colin was then ordered to pay $2000 in cost for the objection. Quite a rare order for cost. 

Lesson? Just one. 

I have written much about redemption. I have written about inmates serving their time and promising to change, and they did change. They proved themselves admirably and were duly reintegrated back to society, contributing to it in exemplary ways. 

But, Colin is different, at least for now. If you read some of the victims’ statements, you get a sense of the person Colin was (or is?). 

One victim wrote: “I felt very worried and powerless when I saw the accused posting on social media with other female friends. I could not warn them because of the gag order on the accused’s identity.”

Another victim wrote: “In the days after the news came out about the investigation, I distanced myself from him without knowing that he had filmed me too. He had the audacity to ask if we still wanted to be friends.”

Here’s another. “Not being aware of his crimes, I even encouraged him to meet my friend (the 11th victim), which (resulted in her) becoming another victim. This made me feel very guilty.”

Posting on social media? Still scouting for female friends online? Still wanting to meet victim’s friend, ending up with her being the 11th victim? This crab just wouldn’t walk straight, right? Even after being investigated or charged? 

Indeed, it is Colin’s objection to the lifting of the gag order that shows how he had sorely mistaken (or conflated) his interest for (or with) the interest of his victims. For the heart speaks when the hand performs the deeds. 

As Asian culture would have it, he wanted “face” by hiding his face from the public glare and the victims’ ire. Yet, what good is a face if he just wants to satisfy his own carnal desires on unsuspecting victims, and not face up to what he has done? 

Alas, redemption does not come cheap. It comes with a price. And it is a price that is set beyond just restricting your freedom behind bars. For that’s your physical freedom of movement. And that is externally imposed. 

In fact, the price of true freedom (leading to redemption) may be one you are still paying even after you have served your time in prison.

For that freedom is the face of a repentant heart, and no prison bars can guarantee that depth of transformation in a person, save for that person himself resolving in his heart to turn his life around and make amends. It is also the freedom the scripture talks about - “for you will know the truth and the truth will set your free.”

That is the conscious freedom of change, or true redemption. And that is internally imposed.

So, I fully support the lifting of the gag order. Indeed, his interest counts for nothing. Because, for some people, as long as they can hide their actions from public attention, their interest to self-gratify with impunity will burn brightly in the darkness of their heart. 

And the freedom people like Colin relishes is often realised at the expense of the lives of innocent victims, who may still think he is a gentleman, a faceless one.

 

Dr Wee's acquittal.

Either way, Dr Wee (“Wee”) will get his acquittal, whether it’s for rape or digital (finger) penetration. 

First, the high court judge below could not convict him of rape because the prosecution has not proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt. CA agrees with that. 

Why? Because the medical evidence supported his claim that he had ED. And mind you, it was not based on what his wife said about his erection, that is, it was “soft as noodle”. 

And ED leads to the next implausibility, that is, the way the rape was alleged to have been carried out. Wee’s hands were on her knees, they were supporting her legs. This is the victim’s testimony. 

But, with ED, you need assistance to penetrate. You can’t go at it alone, when both hands are supporting her legs. Although the medical evidence is that you can still penetrate without aid of one’s hand, there will be “some difficulty”. Yet, it is “not totally impossible.” Here’s the context. 

“You have to be a non-virginal person, then it might be possible, but if you have a virgin partner, a partner who is a virgin, with an unbroken hymen, it may have some great difficulty in penetrating.”

And FYI, the evidence is that the victim is a virgin, who was an unwilling partner. And that resistance further exacerbates the effort of a limp penis trying to make entry. This is thus a case where the actus reus “horse” precedes and supersedes the mens rea “carriage”. 

The other point that casts reasonable doubt on the rape charge came from the evidence of the victim. The court finds it “incredible” that “when the victim sat up and allegedly saw Dr Wee’s penis still in her vagina”, she could initially still assert it was part of a medical examination.

CA said: “To put it bluntly, this would have been a violation of her person at the most horrific abusive level and we find it difficult to understand how (the victim) could have failed to appreciate that. The question here is not so much one that concerns a victim’s reaction to a sexual assault after the trauma of the incident; rather, it is the credibility of a victim’s claim of what she thought was happening, while it was happening.” It is thus a credibility issue, and it is one of the many strings in the Defence’s evidential bow. 

A further point to note is that the victim had spent about 20 mins confessing to her mother almost immediately after the incident, but she never once mentioned that she was raped. All she had said was that “Dr Wee had poked something into her vagina.” The court finds that highly peculiar. Another evidential string?

The last point is an issue of audacity. The court noted that it is not plausible for the act of rape to be carried out “given that there were clinic assistants and other patients in the clinic.” Who in his right mind would rape in broad day light (so to speak) right? 

So, when you put it altogether, you have the threshold that the criminal justice requires the prosecution to cross, that is, “proving a case beyond a reasonable doubt”. And it was not crossed in this case. Too many things just didn’t make sense. 

The ED, the implausibility of hands-free penile penetration, the incredibility of the victim’s initial reaction, the 20 mins account to her mother without mentioning rape, and the unimaginable audacity it would take for the act to be committed in an open, public clinic, all adds up to tilt the balance in Wee’s favour for an acquittal of rape. 

At this juncture, I just want to say that that’s how the criminal justice works when it comes to satisfying the standard of proof. In a case of “he says, she says”, you have to set the standard for the one who brings the charge, and then, keep the standard for the one who has to defend it. 

Beyond a reasonable doubt is a safe and fair standard because of the gravity of the punishment and how some allegations of sexual violation may be susceptible to abuse with dire consequences to the innocent. It therefore cannot be an emotional conviction, but one strictly on a balancing-of-facts-and-interest conviction. 

And in Wee’s case, he was acquitted because the evidence just doesn’t cross that threshold (and whether we accept that rationalising process or not does not change the way the rules are applied). 

How about digital penetration then? If it is not his flaccid penis, how about his resolute finger? 

Well, this is more complicated and controversial, because of what was said about it from the horses’ mouth. 

Wee did admit that he had penetrated the victim with his finger. If that is the case, shouldn’t the actus reus horse be deemed as a home run here? Shouldn’t it be a cut and dry case? Shouldn’t Wee be charged with outrage of modesty and serve the 10 years then? 

Well, here comes criminal justice to the foreground. This time, it didn’t go that far as to proving the case beyond reasonable doubt. In fact, neither parties (DPP and Wee) needed to go there because of the issue of “prejudice”. Let me flesh it out. 

First, digital penetration was never the prosecution’s case. The victim’s evidence is strictly on rape, that is, penile-vagina penetration. All evidence was thus about rape. In fact, the victim specifically denied any digital penetration. 

Yes, I know, Wee admitted to finger insertion. But that was and has always been in the context of a medical/pelvic examination, not outrage of modesty. 

Had the case been about digital penetration, the Defence asserts that they would have conducted their case differently, that is, they would have called other witnesses, or recall them to give their opinion about the appropriateness of the medical examination. 

And yes, again I heard you the first time - didn’t he admit to inserting his finger, ungloved even, and what’s more, for lubricant, he used his saliva? Isn’t that sick on so many levels? 

Well, on this point, the CA felt that because the prosecution had conducted their case strictly on the rape charge, the Defence was therefore not given the full opportunity to explain that the finger insertion was in the name of medical/pelvic examination. And second, you can’t convict a person based on actus reus alone. You have got to convict on the mens rea too, that is, his intention at that time of the offence. That was also not fleshed out fully at the trial. 

So, Wee may have admitted to ungloved insertion with saliva, which, in my view, ought to be a professional/ethical violation, but to say it was outrage of modesty is quite an evidential quantum leap, if not a discretionary act of overreaching. 

And if you want to look at it another way, the question is, did he violate the victim with digital penetration or did he violate the code of practice in carrying out a medical/pelvic examination? The CA however didn’t even need to consider the former, by virtue of prejudice, which as a result, had left the evidence unchallenged, the standard of proof hanging, and the conclusion unascertainable (unless the CA directs that a fresh trial on that charge be heard in the lower court). 

. 

As for the latter, ethical violation, the SMC will just have to deal with it in due course. SMC said: “As deliberations are under way on whether disciplinary proceedings are to be brought against Dr Wee, the SMC seeks the public’s understanding that it is not able to comment at this juncture so as to avoid prejudicing any such proceedings.” 

Currently, Wee is not practising medicine. He has not renewed his license after the suspension was lifted recently. 

So friends, after all’s said and done, this is how the criminal justice work in general. It is not perfect. Its source/creator is not perfect. At times, the guilty do get away, and the innocent convicted. Some serve longer prison time than it is fair, and some get away with shorter sentences. 

But, at the end of the day, rules are rules, and securing a conviction or an acquittal has its own rules. These rules are there to safeguard all, regardless, and if you do not meet them, that is, the standard of proof, or if it is an issue of prejudice, then the court must do what is fair by adhering to the rules, and not be swayed by emotions. 

And if you do not know by now, there is a difference between the court of public opinion and the court of law and justice. One examines a case from a distance, from what was reported, and the other scrutinises it in detail, leaving no evidential stones unturned. 

One is moved more by emotions than the other. One is based largely on the rule of thumb and the other, well, rule of law. One is essentially intuitive, by way of feeling and guessing, and the other works by deductive and inductive reasonings.

And lastly, one can be easily influenced by populist sentiments, while the other is focused on interpreting and applying the law to a case, and deciding strictly on that basis, regardless of whether that decision eventually turns out to be popular or not. 

Have a good Sunday. Cheerz

 

Father kills daughter - Mental Illness is real.

“You are a selfless, loving and devoted father.” 

That’s the words of Justice Hoo when she sentenced Tan Tian Chye, 66, (“Mr Tan”) to two years and nine months in jail yesterday for killing his daughter. But taking into account that he had been in remand since 20 Nov 2018, Mr Tan was released yesterday, the same day he was being sentenced. 

This is one case where justice rightly took the road less travelled when the love of a father was pushed to the edge. It is also a case where the tragic crash of mental illness and a caregiver’s devotion ended up in a stranglehold that led to one’s daughter’s death. 

When Mr Tan strangled his daughter to death, he was diagnosed for “suffering from a major depressive episode and significant caregiver stress.” In fact, the judge noted that “Mr Tan and his wife had been on the verge of suicide as their daughter became increasingly unreasonable.”

It reports that Mr Tan and his wife did everything his daughter asked of them. They bit the bullet when she scolded them incessantly, found fault with them and even made them bow before her. Their daughter was mental ill, and was diagnosed with panic attack, when she fainted in the MRT in 2012. 

She was also diagnosed with agoraphobia (“a condition which made her anxious in unfamiliar environment”) and “hypochondriacal preoccupation”.

Here’s a rundown of what the parents have to bear, everyone of them eventually led to the last straw on that fateful day.

After the daughter was diagnosed with panic attack in 2012, she became “anxious about leaving the flat on her own and her boyfriend moved into the flat with her. She also became more particular, and would ask her parents to clean items repeatedly until she was satisfied.”

In 2017, she forced her parents to borrow from their relative so that she could apply for a BTO flat and also ”made her younger brother return $50k her parents had spent on his education.”

When she discovered she was not the sole beneficiary of her mother’s CPF nomination, she “scolded her parents until her mother changed the nomination.”

In mid-2018, she demanded her parents buy industrial fans to blow away secondary smoke coming into their flat. Subsequently, she moved out to her aunt’s place to escape the smoke. 

And according to the DPP, “(she) became more insistent and abusive, and blamed the accused and his wife for not loving her and not providing enough for her.”

Alas, the last straw came on 19 Nov 2018, “after (Mr Tan) picked her up from the aunt’s place, she told him over lunch that she felt like killing him with a fork.”

She then verbally cursed and abused her father throughout the journey. And “upon reaching home, she went to the kitchen, and (Mr Tan) picked up a metal pole to arm himself out of fear that she would harm him.”

“In the kitchen, when he saw her pointing a knife at him, he hit her with the pole and after she fell to the floor, he grabbed a cloth and strangled her with it.”

Mr Tan then called the police and told them that he had killed his daughter.

When Mr Tan heard the sentence yesterday, he thanked the judge, prosecutors and his lawyers and said: “May God bless all of you.”

Lesson? Just one. 

At the sentencing, the judge remarked that this is a sad case that could have been avoided if timely help and appropriate intervention were received by Mr Tan and his family. This is true, because at every critical intersection, the last straw is often the most unexpected one. 

As I am writing this, I have no doubt that many families can identify with Mr Tan in the same way that many could identify with the case of the father-in-law who had stabbed his son-in-law thrice on the chest for his impenitent/arrogant behaviour (which all added up and drove him off the edge) He too suffered from depression). 

Of course, the two cases can be distinguished, but my point is that the last straw is often the unseen, unplanned and unsuspecting intruder into one’s life, and it is described as a “featherweighted straw” because, most times, it doesn’t take a push of great emotional magnitude to cause one to snap, but a light nudge would suffice to change the course of one or two lives forever. 

This case is tragic because, as a father with two young daughters, I could feel his love and devotion for his daughter. Without a doubt, it was a love so compelling that one is prepared to dedicate his whole life or give his life to his daughter without any consideration. 

But to be cornered by circumstances that converged or conspired to overwhelm a father’s love until he had to act in that way speaks of a tragedy that is beyond words, beyond punishment, and beyond imagination. 

The judge said: “It is unfortunate because that much needed help, support and intervention were not sought by or given to the Tan family during those years for their daughter and, thereafter, for the accused.”

Well, let me end by saying that, as a conservative and tradition-bound nation, it is really the last resort for a father (or mother) to want to seek help due to the social stigma involved (amongst other considerations). 

And as a corollary of that is this grim reality that there is always a dark competition between what is the last resort and what is the last straw that breaks the soul and will of a “selfless, loving and devoted father”. 

Tbh, at times, who wins this dark competitive race is determined by who gets to the finishing line first, that is, it is a race between seeking help as the last resort and unwittingly allowing the last circumstantial straw to fall due to a father’s protective, if not, sometimes biased, love.

 

Mother kills son and herself - Mental Illness is Real.

As W.H. Auden once said: “We must love one another or die.”

But how do you come to terms with a mother who strangled her five-yr-old son and then fatally stabbed herself? How do you reconcile a mother’s love that tragically compelled her to take her son’s life and her own?

Japanese national, Nami, 41, was suffering from major depressive disorder, but was undergoing treatment, according to the Coroner’s findings. 

Nami sought help at least three days before the tragedy on Nov 14 last year. She was treated for Low mood and anxiety. She told a psychiatrist about her suicide thoughts and feelings of depression. She informed her doctor that she was not sleeping well and was anxious for the past few months. She lost her “appetite, weight and hair”, and “had palpitations for about a week.”

Nami left nothing unsaid about her condition. She even told the psychiatrist “she was stressed about her son... (who was autistic and had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), without revealing the exact reasons.”

And she was not without help. Nami was “immediately referred to the emergency medicine department at Singapore General Hospital, where she was denied being suicidal but said she had been feeling depressed for a year.” 

She even assured her private psychiatrist that she won’t harm herself for the sake of her children. She has a younger child and her husband was a businessman. Yet, refusing such a thought, she did admit that she had “one transient, short episode of thinking of ending her life a week prior.”

This were the trail she had left behind, and on that fateful day, on 13 Nov, she also left a suicide note. In the note, she said her medication did not work and told her husband “she was going to take Sotaro with her.”

At the time, her husband was on a business trip to China, and they last spoke on 10 Nov, according to the Coroner’s account. 

Here is what happened as reported by Cara Wong.

“According to the maid, in the night of Nov 13, (Nami) read storybooks to her children until they fell asleep. She later texted the maid to tell her that she had taken Sotaro to the hospital as he was “having a fever””.

“However, the police investigation showed that (Nami) had likely strangled Sotaro in the living room using a long elastic band and raffia string.”

“Around 5:40 am, she drove out, with her son’s body covered in a white blanket, to Lorong Sesuai.” And she then fatally stabbed herself “near Bukit Timah Reserve.”

Alas, how do you stop someone whose mind has already made up? The grim narrative haunts me because she left the child who is presumably normal and took the one who is not. But she did not leave him alone. As his mother, she journeyed with him till the end, even if an end premature. 

Here, I can only deal with the facts, as I would not even attempt to address the cause. For who truly understands the mind and all its complexities? 

Like the mysterious world that lies deep beneath the vast ocean, doctors of the mind are at times merely lifeguards by the beach looking at the endless expanse of a person’s mind not knowing what is pulling that person down, and equally clueless about how far down the unknown depth that grips goes. 

A novelist/poet Stevie Smith said: “I was much far out all my life, And not waving but drowning.” 

That must been how many people like Nami felt in their mental ocean struggling to stay afloat. I guess at times they wish so much to stop the struggle and sink effortlessly into the deep that calls out to them, thereby allowing the darkness to drown out the pretentious light for the call to save oneself. 

Mind you, Nami was not without medical help. She had in fact sought it, and shared her anxiety and transient suicidal thoughts with professionals. 

I trust she had a community, even if but a handful. She had her husband, maid, children and even wrote to her brother, “pleading with him to raise her younger son together with his children.”

In every naturally conceivable way, Nami shouldn’t have any reason to cease the struggle and sink in. Yet, her waves from a shadowy distance had sent a mixed signal, one of rescue and the other of letting go. At some point, she had drifted much too far out in her life to ever saw the need to swim back to shore or within visible sight. 

Alas, at such rare times, the inevitability of life is its inevitability. And I know, by writing this, I have taken a road very much remote for travelling, entering the dark woods where one is perpetually struggling to existential exhaustion. But I am not one given in to the pretentious light when the struggle seems endless, and the pain unceasing. 

When a life or two is gone this way, when the waving stops, and the ocean is still once more, we who stand from afar are always reminded to hold on tight to our loved ones, and to look into their eyes to remind them that we must indeed love one another, or die, and die only when our time is up.

 

A father's revenge.

 “You are too much”. 

That’s what a father-in-law told his son-in-law, just before he stabbed him three times outside a Telok Ayer Street coffee shop on 10 July 2017, at 1:20 pm lunchtime. 

But, what is too much? 

Is it that his son-in-law, Spencer Tuppani, 39 yr old, had taken over the company his father-in-law had painstaking built up by persuading him and his wife to assign their shares to him? 

Is it that Spencer shortchanged them by paying a paltry sum of $450,000 from the sale of shares, as his father-in-law expected to receive more?

Is it that Spencer is suspected by his father-in-law to harbour plans to get rid of his sister-in-law too, possibly including his own wife?

Are all that too much? Wait, there’s more.

How about the time when his father-in-law found out that Spencer was having an affair with another woman, and they had two children born out of wedlock?

The papers in fact reports that the father-in-law “believed that Mr Tuppani had plans to cheat him of his business by divorcing his daughter after taking control of all their shares.”

After the offence, Tan Nam Seng, called his daughter, Shyller, and told her this: “I can’t sleep at night. I have done it. I have killed him. Don’t cry. I am old already. I am not scared (of) going to jail.” When Shyller cried over the phone, Tan said: “What’s done cannot be undone.”

Indeed, what is done was he had stabbed his son-in-law while he was having lunch with three friends. Before that, Tan went to his office, took a knife from the pantry and headed to the coffee shop to hunt Tuppani down. 

“Closed-circuit television footage was played in court showing Tuppani running away and collapsing in front of a restaurant in Boon Tat Street”.

That’s not all. He went over and kicked him twice in the face. And chasing passers-by away, Tan told them: “This is my son-in-law, don’t help him, let him die.”

I guess the intention to end a life is quite clear. It was a premeditated act conceived with resolve at the office’s pantry (when Tan armed himself with the knife) and ended with him kicking his face and telling passers-by to “let him die”. 

Tan was thus convicted of a reduced culpable homicide charge and will be sentenced in due course. He was diagnosed with major depressive disorder. The papers explained: “His condition, which included “overwhelming ruminations and worries about the well-being of his daughters,” impaired his mental responsibility for his actions, said an Institute of Mental Health report.””

Lesson? Sadly, truth is stranger than fiction. Such family tragedy is not only limited to the Netflix screen, but the reality of it can be even more visceral and shocking.

So, how is the hand of justice going to mete out the sentence in this case? How does the judicial fact-finder then perform a Solomon and divine the nuances, which concern many moral and legal wrongs at so many levels? 

Needless to say, we have progressed far beyond the tribalistic or folksy justice of ancient days where it is about an eye for an eye, or a life for a life. Over time, we have institutionalised that whimsical justice into the impersonal hand of the rule of law, instead of putting it in the emotional hands of the one deeply aggrieved, and seeking revenge.

But for argument’s sake, I trust this case appeals to the emotional side of us as against the rational side, where the rule of law resides with a firm hand. 

For on one side, you have ingratitude, greed and lust. And on the other side, you have betrayal, hatred and revenge. I therefore trust that the scale of justice from the emotional side will never find its balance. 

And I also trust there will be many out there who quietly sympathise with the struggles of the protective father for the well being of his daughters and family. We are human after all. We are thus more easily swayed by emotions than reason. This is evident with the numerous scams of late involving promises of companionship and quick-fortune. 

But, at the end of the day, a life is gone. That is a fact. He too has loved ones. He may have done what he was alleged to have done, but it was still a life that deserved to live, comeuppance notwithstanding. 

In other words, Tuppani did not deserve to have his life prematurely ended in such a way, with impunity. And if we are tempted to pitch the case as a heroic father sacrificing himself to protect his family from a crook, justice would not only be blind, but immobilised, to the adverse effect on society. 

But if we allow reason to be tempered with emotion, more relevantly, compassion, both working hand in hand, it is hoped that the hand of leniency will mete out the sentence in a way that the troubled conscience of society will be assuaged for both sides' sake.

 

Sex and Maserati.

Is it the face of Joshua Robinson that compounded the public ire of his crime? Surely it's not, right? Although with his looks he could fit snugly into any villainy role in the mold of Lo Pan of Big Trouble in Little China, his crime nevertheless speaks for itself, right? 

To the public at large, especially the 27,000 who had signed the petition, Joshua Robinson deserves more than 4 years in cold cell and it warrants a few strokes where it really hurts - looks or no looks, goatee or otherwise. Surely, a few whips of the cats of nine tails would have sent Joshua off to the road to perdition, right?

Now, to set the record straight, the AGC is not appealing, however, Shanumgam is reviewing. So, how's that for a win-win for all - that is, the petitioners and that villiany-looking perpetrator. AGC clarified that it's not statutory rape (girls under 14). It's actually consensual sex with two 15-year-old.

And as for that disgusting act of showing an obscene clip to a six-year-old (...what was Joshua thinking!?), her father hopes that the "authorities will look into the existing system and consider having harsher punishment for similar cases."

The father said, "That's all I want. I want the Government to look into it. As for my family and I, we want closure. We are not angry. I'm content, and I want to move on."

Lesson? Well, for one thing, I am glad that social activism is not dead in Singapore. Our government asked for a responsive citizenry, and I think we have a rather vibrant and sensitive one. We petition against the Casino, against repealing S377A, against Madonna and Adam Lambert, and now Joshua Robinson.

They say the conscience of the society is the people at large, the moral majority, the social sentry keepers, and I think our little red dot sees red every time something of this indecent and morally-perturbing nature pricks our conscience, insults our intelligence and keeps us huffing and puffing with moral indignation. Nothing escapes our indecent-sensitive radar.

Here is another news in the other corner of the judicial radar for us to think about. Wang Kim Fatt, 53, is rich. But he has a track record. He was charged with drink driving thrice, yes, three times. He was given six weeks' imprisonment with fine and ban.

Wang can accept the fine ($10k) and ban (8 years) but he appealed against the jail term of six weeks. Here is why.

After being charged for the second time, Wang has learnt his lesson. He hired a valet to drive him when he drinks. That fateful night, last March, he wanted his valet to drive after drinking but the catch is that he "had picked up the $600k GranTurismo MC Stradale (short for Maserati) from a dealer just hours earlier."

His witless valet asked Wang to demonstrate how to drive that supercar because it "does not have a gear shift; instead, the gearbox is robotised and the drive modes are activated by paddle shifters."

Wang then got into the driver's seat and drove 710m before was stopped by a police roadblock.

DPP Kong asked for six weeks, which is in the lower range for such offences, because Wang "ought to know he should not have been driving." But JA Chao "agreed that the circumstances were not typical and cut Wang's jail term (from six to four weeks)." The Judge said, "He should have left the car in the parking lot rather than try to demonstrate to the driver how to operate the machine." Underscore "machine". 

This is the part that stirred in me some moral consternation. Wang's lawyer said, "The prospect of leaving the brand-new car overnight in the car park was unpleasant." Underscore "unpleasant".

Alas, Wang could have called a cab, uber, grabcar, or called a friend (and maybe fire the valet - for allowing his boss to test-drive 710m on the road instead of in the parking lot), or rent a bicycle and ask the valet to pillion him (ok, the last suggestion was pure silly).

But he didn't. He wanted to operate the machine all by himself in a bid to demonstrate to his valet how to tame it, ride it and ply it on the road after drinking all because it would be "unpleasant" to leave that machine overnight in a drab car  park (instead of in the cozy garage in his mansion).

What travesty! Should I petition? Cheerz?