Sure A Not

SINGAPORE: After noticing a boy at a bus stop, Kenneth Loh Jiahui followed him into the lift at a nearby housing block before showing the 12-year-old an obscene video on his mobile phone.

For his actions last year, Loh was sentenced to five months and two weeks’ jail on Tuesday (Jan 16).

He has since been dismissed from the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) College East where he worked as a lecturer, teaching students of ages 17 to 25, at the time of his offence.

He earlier pleaded guilty to intentionally causing the underage victim to observe a sexual image for the purpose of causing alarm. The victim cannot be named due to a gag order to protect his identity.

WANTED TO “TEASE AND AROUSE” 

The court heard that Loh was making a delivery in Pasir Ris on the evening of Jun 8, 2023 when he noticed the victim at a bus stop along Pasir Ris Street 21.

Loh saw that he was small-sized. He decided to “tease and arouse” the boy – whom he viewed as an “easy target” – and elicit a reaction from him, the court further heard.

He then followed the boy from the bus stop to the lift lobby of a nearby block. The exact location was redacted from court documents.

While at the lift lobby, Loh accessed a pornographic website on his mobile phone and found a video. They then entered the lift, with Loh pressing the button for the 12th floor and the boy pressing the button for the eighth floor.

Loh then showed the video to the boy, who could not hear anything as Loh was wearing headphones.

Loh smiled at the boy and asked if he had watched such videos before, which prompted the boy to shake his head and turn away to face the lift door. Undeterred, Loh stretched his arm around the boy’s shoulder to continue showing him the video.

The boy retreated to the back of the lift and began using his phone to appear busy. However, Loh followed him with the video still playing on his phone.

When they got to the eighth floor, the boy started to leave but Loh attempted to show him the video once more by putting his phone closer to the boy’s face.

The boy avoided him and exited the lift. He told his mother about the incident when he reached home.

After she called for police assistance, Loh was identified through closed-circuit television camera footage and arrested.

“COMMITMENT TO WRONGDOING”

The prosecution sought between five and six months’ jail, noting that parliament had expressed the need to enforce harsher penalties for sexual offences against minors under the age of 14.

In sentencing Loh, District Judge Elton Tan said Loh’s persistence “demonstrated a certain commitment to wrongdoing” and a “certain absence of remorse” at the time.

“He suspected the victim would be in a confined space and probably alone. The victim had very little means of avoiding him. All of this facilitated (Loh’s) efforts to cause the victim to watch the video,” the judge added.

The judge also rejected defence counsel SS Dhillon’s argument that Loh’s adjustment disorder with depressed mood should be given mitigatory weight.

The disorder was not a mental illness but a “normal psychological reaction to the vicissitudes of life”, according to a psychiatrist’s report. It did not affect Loh’s awareness of the nature and wrongfulness of his actions.

Loh could have been jailed up to three years or fined, or both.

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NEW WAYS TO ATTRACT CUSTOMERS

The nurseries are still coming up with ways to keep their tills ringing, despite feeling the heat. 

World Farm, for example, is enhancing its product offerings through ways such as additional ornaments, deliveries at a discount and disposal services to raise sales.

“Consumers are always willing to pay for something that other places do not have. So for us, we do have enough lorries and manpower to actually cope with this.”

Most of the customers shopping for Chinese New Year plants only visit nurseries once a year, said Mr Ng. 

“So when we offer them saying (we) can help to add on the ribbons and disposal at this cost, a lot of them are quite surprised. It’s an ad-hoc thing for them. So that actually helps to push more sales,” he said.

Meanwhile, larger nurseries including Far East Flora, which also has a presence in Malaysia and Hong Kong, are hosting activities such as Chinese calligraphy to attract younger customers looking to soak in the festivities. 

Far East Flora managing director Alex Cheok said his stores are seeing younger people, and “their taste is quite different from the traditional kind of taste”. 

“We do more promotion to entice customers to walk in and experience for themselves what is the atmosphere of buying a Chinese New Year plant,” he added. 

One advantage brick-and-mortar stores have is that many customers would prefer to choose their plants on site, noted Mr Cheok. 

Nurseries said they will continue to work on improving customers’ shopping experiences, and are confident that these beautiful blooms will bring their shops a New Year boom.

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MAID NOTICED LACK OF SAFETY GEAR

Around 4.10pm, the other man heard a loud bang. He then saw Hla Thein Aung lying motionless at the basement level.

A domestic worker who lived in the opposite block also told the authorities that she had noticed Hla Thein Aung was not wearing a helmet and was not connected to any safety line, while his co-worker had put on safety equipment.

She further recalled that Hla Thein Aung was scratching his back while painting.

When she heard a bang, she noticed the co-worker attempting to check on Hla Thein Aung but his movement was restricted by the safety line.

The co-worker managed to get to Hla Thein Aung shortly after. He shouted over the phone in Burmese to his supervisor that Hla Thein Aung was lying on the ground and his head was already broken, according to the maid.

He was not wearing his gloves and helmet, which the police later found on the fourth-floor parapet. His shoes and safety line were found on the first-floor staircase landing.

He was wearing a safety harness but it was loose.

The MOM investigation officer told the court that investigations could not ascertain why he removed his shoes, but he likely did not want to leave marks on the parapet walls.

NO FOUL PLAY: POLICE

Following the accident, a toxicology report found substances including nitrazepam – a type of sedative drug that can be used to treat insomnia – in his urine and blood.

The combination of substances had the potential for increased effects of sedation, as well as impairment of motor skills and balance, according to an investigation report that was read out in court.

Hla Thein Aung had also visited a clinic six days before the accident and was prescribed paracetamol.

His supervisor told the authorities that he tended to take medical leave on Mondays and Tuesdays. When the supervisor asked him about this, he insisted he was not feeling well on those days and had no other issues.

The supervisor also indicated that Hla Thein Aung drank alcohol often but he did not see this happening during working hours.

The police concluded that they did not suspect foul play.

STOP-WORK ORDER

After the incident, MOM issued a stop-work order to ISOTeam C&P. The company was also barred from employing new foreign workers for three months due to its poor risk controls.

MOM’s investigation officer, Mr Mohd Hafidz, told the court on Tuesday that the stop-work order was lifted after ISOTeam C&P revised its safety system to maintain “100 per cent tie-off”, which means that a worker must be secured to a fall protection system at any one point in time while working at elevated heights.

Rope access technicians will now perform jobs in areas that are not reachable by the gondola. Workers can stand on ledges to paint but only via rope access as well, Mr Hafidz said.

In his findings, Mr Hafidz cautioned that workers who stand on the ledge are at risk of falling off. While climbing off the parapet wall, they would not be able to hook up to a lifeline either, which violates the need to maintain 100 per cent tie-off.

When State Coroner Nakhoda asked if there should have been more constant supervision, Mr Hafidz said that the supervisor was meant to conduct a roving inspection of all the blocks two times that day.

He did the inspections in the morning, but did not have the chance to conduct an afternoon inspection before the incident happened.

Hla Thein Aung’s death was the first of 14 workplace deaths reported in the first half of 2023 – down from 18 deaths in the second half of 2022, and 28 deaths in the first half of 2022. 

However, the number of major injuries reported in the manufacturing and construction sectors increased in the first half of 2023.

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