SINGAPORE: A former husband of socialite Kim Lim was fined S$3,200 (US$2,400) and banned from driving for two years on Monday (Jan 8) for drink driving when he held only a provisional driver’s licence.
Kho Bin Kai, who is serving a jail term for his role in an illegal gambling syndicate, pleaded guilty to three charges.
These are for drink driving, driving without insurance and driving without the supervision of a licensed instructor and without displaying signs on his car as required under his provisional driving licence.
He appeared in court via video-link from jail, wearing a white shirt and with a shaven head.
The court heard that Kho was at a friend’s house in Bedok drinking liquor past midnight on Apr 1 last year.
He admitted drinking about three glasses over about 45 minutes.
Kho then left the location and drove his vehicle to Bugis, where he picked up his girlfriend, intending to take her home to Kembangan.
However, at about 1.40am, Kho was stopped at a police roadblock along Mackenzie Road towards Bukit Timah Road.
An officer observed that Kho reeked of alcohol and conducted a breathalyser test on Kho, which the latter failed.
He was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and escorted to the traffic police headquarters for another breath test.
There were 43 microgrammes of alcohol in every 100ml of Kho’s breath, above the limit of 35 microgrammes.
At that point, he did not hold a Class 3 driving licence. Instead, he had only a provisional driving licence that was valid from May 2022 to May 2024.
PAST TRAFFIC VIOLATIONS
The prosecutor listed the past traffic violations Kho has committed: A speeding offence in February 2019 as well as a series of compounded offences in June 2020 for careless driving, failing to stop after an accident, failing to report an accident within 24 hours and causing his vehicle to remain at rest, causing danger to other road users.
The prosecutor asked for fines and disqualification orders, saying Kho had ongoing criminal cases in court since July 2019.
He committed this set of traffic offences while he was on court bail, the court heard.
The prosecutor also asked for an increase in the sentence, due to the fact that Kho was on a provisional driving licence in the first place and was not supposed to be drink driving. He also had a passenger in his car.
Kho’s lawyer, Mr Tang Shangwei from WongPartnership, said his client had pleaded guilty at the earliest instance and has been fully cooperative at all stages.
Kho is currently serving a jail term of two years and 10 months that was meted out to him on May 9 last year.
He was married to socialite Kim Lim, the daughter of billionaire Peter Lim, for three years before divorcing in 2020.
Kim appeared in court last year to support Kho when he surrendered in court to serve his jail term for illegal gambling offences.
Kho had admitted to managing online gambling and using the criminal proceeds to buy luxury watches.
He was arrested in July 2019 in an islandwide crackdown by the police on illegal online gambling.