Singapore — A Vietnamese woman who used to work for a local firm has been found guilty of contempt of court for repeated defamatory allegations on social media.
Twenty-five-year-old Do Thi Minh Diep must serve five days’ jail time if she ever returns to Singapore.
Diep worked for companies owned by Mr David Ang, 43, from Jan through Oct last year, reports Yahoo Singapore, where she handled administrative tasks.
After she ended her employment, Diep returned to Vietnam.
District Judge Seah Chi-Ling found the Vietnamese national to have breached an order issued under the Protection from Harassment Act because she repeated defamatory allegations.
The judge issued the order on Jul 9 and was served to Diep on her Facebook messenger account last Monday (Jul 26).
Aside from the jail term, she will need to serve in Singapore, she will also need to pay $2,500 to Mr Ang in costs.
Mr Ang’s lawyers are trying to obtain this amount from proceedings that involve the local bank account of his former employee.
The false allegations Diep made on Facebook began last Feb, when she said she was forced to work for Mr Ang’s companies for as many as 300 hours a month, that her working visa had been the wrong one, and that she had not got her pay, etc.
Diep even threatened to tell the Ministry of Manpower about this.
In a later post, she alleged that her employer took $1,000 back from the salary of $2,700 that was given to her.
And on another post, she put up pictures of her employer with an unidentified woman, captioning it “KTV GIRL.” Even more damagingly, she alleged that Mr Ang, who is married and a father, had a dalliance with a hostess named “Serene,” unbeknownst to his wife. She also claimed her former employer had two children with “Serene.”
Mr Ang’s lawyer wrote that Diep made “abusive and insulting remarks against (Ang’s) alleged sexual promiscuity.”
This caused Mr Ang to seek an expedited protection order against the Vietnamese woman that would require her to take the posts down and cease from posting other such claims, which was granted under the Protection from Harassment Act last Mar.
Based on correspondence between the lawyers of Mr Ang and Diep, the Vietnamese woman knew about the expedited protection order.
However, she did not take down the post she made previous to the order and even added the following: “When speak truth, nothing scare (sic). I pray to God that justice can come.”
The woman continued to post allegations against Mr Ang.
Yahoo Singapore quoted Mr Ang as saying he was “hurt, embarrassed and harassed” by the posts of his former employee.
He added, ”Now that the court has found (Diep) to be in contempt of court, I felt that justice has been done, and a sense of relief.
I know that even though Do Minh Diep has returned to Vietnam, it is a relief that if she chooses to return to Singapore, she has to meet the punishment sentenced by the court.”
Diep could have spent as much as 12 months in jail or been made to pay a fine of as much as $20,000 for the offences she committed. /TISG
Read also: Not all Vietnamese go to S’pore for KTV jobs: Vietnam embassy official