Distress

SINGAPORE: A 45-year-old man who abused methamphetamine and then stalked his ex-girlfriend at her home, her friends’ homes and her son’s school was jailed for a year and 24 days on Friday (Nov 29).

Ng Poh Heng pleaded guilty to one charge under the Protection from Harassment Act and two charges of possession and consumption of the drug.

Ng was in a relationship that ended in early 2024. He moved out of the home he shared with his ex-girlfriend and her son from a previous relationship in March 2024.

However, Ng remained unhappy after the break-up and felt that his ex-girlfriend had not been forthcoming about some things.

“He also felt aggrieved that the relationship had ended as he felt that he had treated her well during the relationship, including providing for her materially,” Deputy Public Prosecutor Jonathan Tan said.

Ng repeatedly tried to contact the woman through phone calls and text messages. He also tried to reach her through her mother, telling her he wanted to die.

The ex-girlfriend blocked his number to prevent him from contacting her.

In the early hours of Apr 17, Ng sent his ex-girlfriend’s friend a video of himself driving at high speed, and a message saying he had taken many pills.

He then sent the friend a video of himself being involved in a car accident. The friend forwarded these videos and messages to Ng’s ex-girlfriend.

At about 11am, Ng went to the house where he used to live with his ex-girlfriend. He called out to her, but there was no response.

He then used his keys to unlock the front door, but could not unlock the front gate as the lock had been changed.

After shouting for the woman to come out and getting no response, he took two ceramic tiles placed outside and threw them into the house in anger.

Ng’s ex-girlfriend was out with another friend at the time, and saw his actions through a closed-circuit television camera she had installed outside her home.

Ng next drove to the homes of two of his ex-girlfriend’s friends to look for her, but she was not there, and the friends were also not at home.

The helper of one of the friends informed her employer that Ng had come by, and the friend informed Ng’s ex-girlfriend of this.

In his anger, Ng also damaged a prayer altar outside one of the friend’s homes. He took a photo of this and sent it to the friend.

At about 2pm, Ng went to the school where his ex-girlfriend’s 14-year-old son studied and met with the son outside the school’s general office.

When Ng confronted the boy about why his mother had cut off contact with him, the boy said it was because he took drugs. He also said he believed his mother was at home.

A teacher came out and brought Ng and the boy into the general office to speak with the vice-principal. After this, Ng left the school and drove to his ex-girlfriend’s place again, but could not find her.

The woman was alarmed and distressed by Ng’s messages and repeated attempts to look for her. She also felt unsafe to return home, fearing that he would go there, the prosecutor said.

She went to a neighbourhood police centre to make a police report.

But through her friend, Ng became aware that she was at the police station making a report, and drove there to look for her.

He arrived at about 4pm and kept shouting and behaving rowdily, despite attempts by police officers to calm him down.

The officers eventually subdued and arrested him for disorderly behaviour. They also searched his car and found a packet of crystal methamphetamine and drug-related paraphernalia.

Ng tested positive for the drug, and admitted to taking it in Malaysia two days before.

The prosecutor asked for a jail term comprising one year for drug consumption and four to six weeks for stalking the woman.

He said Ng’s ex-girlfriend had made it clear she did not want contact with him, so Ng knew that his actions were likely to distress her.

In sentencing, District Judge Crystal Goh noted that Ng’s actions took place over a relatively short period of five hours, and were not done with a meaningful degree of premeditation.

The maximum punishment for stalking by a first-time offender is a year in jail, a fine of S$5,000 or both.

For possessing a controlled drug, Ng could have been jailed for up to 10 years, fined S$20,000 or both.

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The State Courts have ruled against A Man’s lawsuit against the Singapore Kindness Movement ( SKM) over allegations that an affiliate promoted discrimination against transgender people.

Mr Martin Piper, 51, sued SKM, which is a non-government Institution of Public Character, for revealing his details to the internet in issue, Ms Carol Loi Pui Wan.

Ms Loi is the co-founder of&nbsp, SGFamilies Ground-up Movement, &nbsp, which bills itself as being” by relatives, for kids” and “raising wholesome years up”. SKM supports it.

Unemployed Mr. Piper was suing SKM for damages and a claim that the company had violated the Personal Data Protection Act’s ( PDPA ) obligations.

His state involved an email he sent to SKM on August 27, 2022, complaining about Ms. Loi’s alleged participation with a “SG Households Watchgroup” Telegram party.

When an SKM employee copied her in a later email to Mr. Piper, Ms. Loi received a copy of his full name and email address.

Through a claim that Ms Loi filed against him later in violation of the Protection from Harassment Act ( POHA ), Mr. Piper claimed that this had violated SKM’s PDPA obligations and caused him to suffer financial losses and emotional distress.

However, the lawsuit was overturned by Deputy Principal District Judge Chiah Kok Khun in a wisdom dated November 12.

He discovered that Mr. Piper had given his information to SKM in order to investigate the problem, which presupposed that he had given his consent to the disclosure of it.

The plaintiff had provided his personal information. He requested an analysis from the accused and lodged a problem. He did not request for his personality to be anonymised. The judge ruled that “he is fairly presumed to have consented to the reporting of his personal data.”

Mr. Piper claimed in an email that a Telegram group called “SG Families Watchgroup” was “propagating biased and false material that is intended to attack and abuse transgender people.”

He claimed that Ms Loi, the group’s owner, was Ms. Loi, and that he had hoped that SKM may contact her to take control of it and get rid of its “nasty information.”

Mr. Karun S’baram, a SKM employee, responded to Ms. Loi on Sep. 1, 2022, saying that she had clarified that the Telegram group was not affiliated with the SGFamilies Ground-Up Movement, that she was not the team’s leader or owner, and that she had personally participated in the organization as a concerned citizen.

Mr. Karun copied Ms. Loi, telling him that it would be best for her to reply to Mr. Piper immediately after receiving more information about Ms. Loi’s claimed involvement.

SKM also revealed Mr. Piper’s information to Ms Loi three more times during the test, after when its then-governor, Dr. William Wan, revealed the personality of the complainant to her and once when Mr. Karun blindly copied her in a email to Mr. Piper.

However, the judge determined that Mr. Piper should have anticipated that SKM, which represented Senior Counsel Gregory Vijayendran and Meher Malhotra of Rajah &amp, Tann, would have anticipated that his identity would have been revealed during the inspection.

He added that Mr. Piper did not request that his message letter get kept private and confidential, nor did he request anonymity.

The judge added that the organization was forthcoming about facilitating a conversation and quality between them and that there was no “bad faith” by SKM in disclosing Mr. Piper’s identification to Ms. Loi.

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SINGAPORE: Two adult siblings went to a family court to obtain court orders against each other – the brother complained that his sister had been entering his room repeatedly over eight years to clean it, while the sister alleged that her brother had assaulted her.

The court granted orders to both siblings: A personal protection order (PPO) and a partial domestic exclusion order for the brother, excluding his sister from entering his bedroom, and a personal protection order for the sister against her brother.

According to a judgment made available on Thursday (Oct 31), the unidentified brother’s chief complaint was that his sister repeatedly entered his bedroom to clean it.

He felt that his privacy had been intruded on, and it caused him such stress that he was admitted to the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) a few times.

In her defence, the sister explained that she merely wanted to clean the room “as her siblings did not clean their rooms”.

She applied for a personal protection order against her brother over an incident when tensions erupted over the cleaning issue, and her brother assaulted her.

District Judge Tan Zhi Xiang said the court is empowered to make a protection order under the Women’s Charter, with two requirements that must be met.

First, the court must be satisfied that family violence has been committed, or is likely to be committed. Family violence can mean causing hurt, wrongful confinement or causing continual harassment.

Second, the order must be necessary for the protection of the family member.

Judge Tan said the sole issue was whether the sister’s acts in repeatedly entering her brother’s room to clean it amounted to “continual harassment with intent to cause or knowing that it is likely to cause anguish” to him.

“I accept that, ordinarily, a sibling cleaning another sibling’s room would be harmless – and indeed a loving act – and most certainly not amount to harassment,” said the judge.

However, he said each case “turns on its own facts” and what may be harmless under one set of circumstances might be highly distressing in others.

The two siblings had appeared without lawyers and were guided through the trial process and allowed to cross-examine each other.

According to the brother, his sister would enter his room sometime between 10pm or 11pm until 4am. This was corroborated by another sibling, who shared a bedroom with the brother.

This sibling testified that the sister would “choose the wrong timing to clean the room” when she did not stay in that room.

She used to enter at 9pm but changed this to 11pm, and she “may come back in the middle of the night to clean and clean until the wee hours of the night” before going back to her own residence at 3am or 6am.

The sister did not dispute that she had gone into her brother’s room to clean it at night. 

When asked by the court why she felt the need to do so, the woman said: “Because I need to work, my dear.”

She explained: “I need work, my own schedule. I got to go according to my own schedule, my free time. I cannot say, you want me to come at 8am, means 8am. I’m not their maid, I’m not their worker.”

She said she could only clean the room at her own discretion as she had a “tight schedule”.

According to their mutual sibling, this cleaning had been going on for about eight years, with the siblings being unable to sleep at night, rushing in on weekends to lock their rooms quickly to prevent the sister from entering.

Judge Tan said: “It is not difficult to imagine that having someone in one’s bedroom in the wee hours of the night would be disruptive and distressing.”

He accepted that the sister’s conduct had caused the brother anguish, with tensions erupting one day such that he assaulted her.

“While this was unacceptable – and was the reason why I granted the PPO for the sister – it provided further support for the finding that the sister’s conduct had caused the brother deep distress,” said the judge.

He said the evidence clearly showed that the sister was aware that her brother did not want her in his room.

Their other sibling stated that the sister would not take “no” for an answer, trying to enter via other means if they tried to lock the door.

The judge rejected the sister’s case that she had to clean the room for hygiene.

She had stated: “If the person does housework themselves, clean up their own room themselves, it’s fine. But they don’t even do so at all after 40 years of age. Not even one finger … the whole window frame can be black (in) colour.”

She said the unit was on the second floor with “a lot of pests” and that her siblings could “even let … lizards go into the cupboard and stay inside there” and let cockroaches lay eggs.

She also claimed that the cupboard had “turned mouldy with yellow dots”.

“So, when things (are spoilt), who is the one who (repairs them)? I am the one who (repairs) and (pays) for everything. Huh? They don’t even pay a cent, they don’t even … bother. When (the) light is (spoilt), I repair (it). Everything I do,” said the sister.

However, the judge said there was no evidence to show that the brother’s room was in such a squalid state that it had to be cleaned frequently against his will. 

There was also no evidence of pests in his room or house. The photos tendered by the sister showed “at most a messy house”, said the judge.

“In any event, both parties are adults and it was not necessary for the sister to impose her own hygiene standards on her brother,” said Judge Tan.

He said he was satisfied that the sister had committed family violence against her brother, and that it was clear she had “no insight into the impact of her conduct on her brother”.

When asked if she was willing to stop entering his room given his discomfort, she replied: “No, because … this unit belongs to my dad, not him. If he’s not comfortable, he can stay out. You ask him to stay out or get his own place. Because, literally, he (doesn’t) upkeep his room and he’ll breed all the (pests).”

Breaching a personal protection order or a domestic exclusion order is a criminal offence punishable with a fine, a jail term or both.

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