UPDATE: The teen cyclist has since been arrested for causing injury via a rash act in connection to the accident.
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A 60-year-old pedestrian has been left fighting for her life after an accident involving a teen cyclist on Sunday night at a park connector along Blk 495E Tampines Street 43. A 17-year-old is reportedly assisting in police investigations.
The victim, Madam Violet Poh, had been on her regular evening walk when the accident occurred, according to her 30-year-old son, Shawn Toh. Toh revealed to reporters that his family realised something was amiss when his mother did not return home within the next few hours and contacted the police.
The police directed the housewife’s family to Changi General Hospital where the family found Madam Poh. Toh shared that he understands a passer-by had called an ambulance to take his mother to the hospital and revealed: “When we got to her, she was already unconscious.”
Madam Poh suffered trauma to the back of her head and is presently on life support. Her son claims that the doctors have told their family – comprising of his father, 32-year-old elder sister and 24-year-old younger brother – that Mdm Poh has a “zero per cent chance” at survival.
Toh added: “She’s currently on life support but her condition is deteriorating. The doctor said she is likely to last only a few more days.”
The aggrieved family is now appealing for eyewitnesses who have more information to get in touch with the police. Toh said, “There is usually a big crowd especially during evening time. I hope there will be witnesses who will come forward…It’s not easy for us. All this happened too quickly.”
A 26-year-old man was arrested last week for allegedly molesting a 14-year-old girl while wearing the dress. The man, known as Soh, has a prior criminal record, having been jailed four years ago for exposing his private parts and for criminal intimidation in 2014. He had also violated a Remission Order.
Soh reportedly sexually harassed the 14-year-old girl along Toa Payoh Lorong 3 last Wednesday evening around 10pm and allegedly touched the girl’s hair, eyebrows and lips – all the while wearing a strapless black dress and carrying a red purse. He reportedly tried to befriend the victim and asked her sexual questions.
The girl’s father made a police report the very next day, on 31 May, after the victim shared what had happened with him. Officers from the Tanglin Police Division apprehended Soh on 1 June and he was charged in court with outrage of modesty the next day.
According to the Chinese daily, Soh comes from a troubled family background. Soh’s stepfather reportedly served time for drug offences while his younger brother was sent to the Boys’ Home after committing arson, in the past.
Soh’s elder brother, Soh Wee Kian, is presently serving life imprisonment for the culpable homicide of a 32-year-old mother of two in September 2010. Soh Wee Kian stabbed the victim, Ms Hoe Hong Lin, to death on the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival near her home in Woodlands.
The accused will return to court on 14 June and may face up to two years in jail, a fine, and/or caning, if convicted.
The Singapore Democratic Party has called on the Government to reveal whether due diligence was performed over the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Rail project, which was jointly launched by Singapore and Malaysia when toppled leader Najib Razak was still Prime Minister across the causeway.
The project has since been scrapped after Malaysia’s current head of government Dr Mahathir Mohamad announced that Malaysia is pulling out project. Dr Mahathir shared that the project will not benefit Malaysia which is over one trillion ringgit in debt, largely thanks to the scandalous 1MDB project launched by Najib.
Comparing Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan’s posts about how we should celebrate the project and how this is now a missed opportunity to remarks by Malaysia’s Finance Minister and a local academic who opined that the rail project “can’t possibly pay for itself”, the SDP pointed to speculation that “that the inflated HSR costs could have included kickbacks” and asked the PAP Government to reveal what due diligence it performed over the project.
In July 2016, the SDP questioned the agreementbetween Singapore and Kuala Lumpur over the high speed rail (HSR) and said that the project was “troubling”. (See here.)
Back then, we asked: “Why the rush to put pen to paper given the controversy embroiling 1MDB and the political uncertainty building up in Malaysia? Has the Singapore government exercised due diligence in proceeding with the HSR project?”
Fast forward to 2018. The new Malaysian government led by Dr Mahathir has cancelled the project, questioning the benefits of the railway.
Local academic and former Associate Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, Dr Donald Low, also questioned the economic feasibility of the project. He wrote that the rail system “can’t possibly pay for itself” which means that Singaporean taxpayers would have to be saddled with more costs that we can afford.
Since the toppling of the Barisan Nasional government, former prime minister Najib Razak and his wife, Ms Rosmah Mansor, have come under investigation for their roles in the 1MDB corruption saga. Some have suggested that the inflated HSR costs could have included kickbacks.
Amid such a troubling backdrop, the PAP government must answer the question of what due diligence it conducted over this project. The fiasco has affected the businesses, investors, and residents at the Jurong Lake District.
When the HSR agreement was signed, Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan had posted on his FB that it was time to “pause and celebrate”. He waxed poetic that “Travelling will become such a breeze, and our countries will be drawn even closer together” but failed to mention the financial cost that Singaporeans would have to bear.
While Malaysians have a new government to expose the burden such unthinking and ill-considered infrastructural ventures would be placed on the people, the PAP continues to build questionable mega projects without scrutiny.
Apart from the HSR, the PAP has pushed ahead with the construction of the Tuas megaport and the Jewel at the Changi Airport costing billions of dollars. The viability of these projects have not been properly examined and debated. The PAP has been doing as it pleases with little accountability.
In the end, it is Singaporeans who will be made to pay for them through rising taxes and fees.
In the meantime, the PAP does everything to recover the costs it incurs in social spending such as healthcare expenditure and financial assistance for our elderly and poor.
Pro-ruling party fanpage Fabrications about the PAP has been taken to task yet again for taking a shot at the new Government across the causeway, with a Facebook post spreading misinformation about the Goods and Services Tax (GST) cut in Malaysia.
The administrator of the controversial page posted a picture showing a side-by-side comparison of two receipts – the text on the picture implies that one receipt is for a meal before the GST cut in Malaysia was imposed and the other receipt is for a meal after the GST cut went into effect.
At first glance, the picture shows that the price for a meal at Rathaa Curry House in Selangor is more expensive after the GST cut, due to a hike in meal prices. The first receipt shows that 4 pieces of Roti Canai and 2 Milo kosong drinks cost RM11.40 and the meal comes to RM12.10 after a 6 per cent GST is applied.
The second receipt shows that the same meal comes to RM12.40 before GST is applied because the cost of 4 pieces of Roti Canai has been hiked by RM0.40 and 2 Milo Kosong drinks also cost RM0.40 more than in the past. The text on the post reads: “Remove GST, they said. Cost of living will lowered, they said.”
The fanpage’s administrator added in his Facebook post: “Milo kosong increased by RM0.60 even before GST 0%. Abolish GST, they said. Cost of living will lowered, they said. Malaysia sibei boleh”
What the administrator failed to mention is that the second receipt is from 29 May – days before the GST cut went into effect on 1 June.
Milo kosong increased by RM0.60 even before GST 0%. Abolish GST, they said.Cost of living will lowered, they said. Malaysia sibei boleh
Netizens responding to the post slammed the page administrator for the misleading information he had featured. While the post was shared over 1400 times, the majority of the 300-plus comments were from netizens who took the page administrator to task for spreading fake news:
Netizens also began sharing the corrected version of the picture:
The harsh criticism the page administrator received does not appear to have deterred him from trying to “stir shit” between Malaysia and Singapore.
Just a day after this contentious post, the page published another post drawing unfair comparisons between the funds raised in Singapore’s President’s challenge and Malaysia’s Hope Fund, prompting several followers to unfollow the page for stooping too low:
In a 2009 speech when Malaysia’s new Attorney-General (AG) Tommy Thomas spoke about the jurisdictions of places such as India, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
He said: “The one place that Malaysia’s constitutional lawyers never look to is to Singapore. Singapore does not have a constitution. It does not have a constitutional court. It does not have constitutional judges. It does not have lawyers. So I cannot make this speech in Singapore. So whenever we criticize Malaysia, we must remember that it is a 100 times better than kiasu-land.”
In response, Lawyer and Human Rights Activist M. Ravi disagreed. He said,
“I agree with everything said by the new AG of Malaysia (below) but will not agree that we don’t have constitutional lawyers in Singapore. I had argued several landmark constitutional cases before our courts”
He also added, “He (Thomas) also said Malaysian lawyers don’t use Singapore cases for constitutional law matters. I again disagree. The case of Yong Vui Kong v AG(2011) which I argued was heavily cited last year by Anwar’s lawyers in the Malaysian High Court in relation to his pardon and the question of whether a pardon process is judicially reviewable. I knew about this when Anwar’s legal team reached out to me to seek some clarifications regarding the Singapore case”.
In AG Thomas’ 2009 speech, he also spoke about the jurisdictions of India, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa – how their constitutions and the constitutional courts have developed over the years.
AG Tommy Thomas is known for representing clients under a lot of media-scrutiny, such as Penang government to restore local government elections, pro-bono defence for Bersih 2.0 in a lawsuit by Federal Government on claims for property damage during 2012 Bersih rally.
AG Tommy’s speech was posted on Facebook by Singaporean Filmmaker Martyn See who said, “Will Singapore’s AG Lucien Wong, a former personal lawyer to Lee Hsien Loong, prosecute Tommy Thomas for scandalising our judiciary?”
Within the 10 hours since it was posted, See’s post got over 23,000 views, 817 shares and more than 180 reactions.
Whether Singapore’s AG responds or not remains to be seen.
Citizens protesting at the Volokolamsk town hall, after noxious fumes from a local landfill sent 50 children to the hospitalRadio Free Europe
A steady stream of garbage-laden trucks moves the waste of Russia’s capital to landfills in the surrounding region. The resulting mountains of refuse emit noxious fumes and leach pollutants into nearby waters, endangering the residents of the region around Moscow.
Citizens living near these landfills have had enough.
Protests against garbage dumps have erupted in at least eight towns and villages around Moscow in the last six months. As a scholar who studies contemporary Russian politics, I believe these garbage protests reveal a crisis of basic governance that potentially poses a greater challenge to Putin’s government than pro-democracy activism.
Resurgent citizen activism
Russian activists have come under increasing pressure since Putin returned to office in 2012. Protests have been relatively scarce after the 2011-2012 Bolotnaya demonstrations in response to election fraud.
Long-standing nongovernmental groups working on environmental and human rights issues, which relied in part on funding from abroad, have been labeled “foreign agents” by Russia’s Ministry of Justice.
At the same time, Putin’s government has cultivated more patriotic and apolitical forms of activism, such as youth groups that organize events memorializing World War II and socially oriented NGOs that work marginalized groups, including the disabled and orphans.
My research charts the changing nature of citizen activism in Russia. In the 1990s, foreign aid flooded into Russia to support democratic transition by funding causes that matched Western donors’ priorities – causes like human rights and environmentalism. Now, many of these groups struggle to survive.
In 2017, in Moscow and St. Petersburg, my research found a substantial increase in grassroots groups oriented around “civic pride” and local volunteer initiatives. These new groups focus on the preservation of green spaces, litter collection, recycling, urban beautification and historic preservation. These efforts represent a new “environmentalism of daily life” more acceptable to the government.
Local residents of Volokolamsk, protesting the noxious garbage dump in their city, throw snowballs at Governor Andrei Vorobyov in late March.
But these seemingly benign groups – and their expectations that citizens can partner with the government to address quality of life issues – may yet represent a political threat to Russia’s status quo.
Minchenko Consulting, a high profile Russian research and PR firm that focuses on political campaigns and elite politics, points out in a recent report that “health and children are two basic universal values” that can motivate otherwise apathetic citizens to take action.
When bread and circuses fail
All politics is local, but Moscow and its waste disposal challenges exert an outsize influence on the surrounding region, with outsized consequences for activism.
Since 2010, under the leadership of Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, Moscow has transformed into a dynamic global city, fueled by oil wealth and urban redevelopment. Moscow’s growing population and unfettered consumption mean increased waste. A report by the environmental group Greenpeace calculates that Moscow is responsible for 11 million tons of trash annually, approximately one-fifth of all waste in Russia. Only 4 percent of Moscow’s waste is recycled.
To preserve quality of life in the capital, the Moscow’s government sends streams of municipal waste into the surrounding regions. Greenpeace reports that 90 percent of Moscow’s waste goes to landfills in Moscow’s suburban region. Landfills created in the Soviet and early post-Soviet period, when there was little consumer waste, have been expanded, often with no community notification and despite being in close proximity to homes and schools. Air quality suffers as the dumps release fumes from decomposing waste.
In addition to established landfills, 52 illegal dumps were identified in the Moscow region in the first half of 2017.
As the stench rises and the public health risks – such as respiratory diseases that most acutely affect children – mount, citizen appeals to regional and national government officials have had little effect.
Local people are left with few options but protest. Demonstrations of more than 1,000 people occurred in at least eight towns and villages near Moscow. Citizens also have organized groups on VKontakte, a Russian social media platform, to coordinate petitions, block roads and even mount hunger strikes.
Children hospitalized
The biggest and most sustained garbage protests have occurred in the town of Volokolamsk, site of the Yadrovo landfill.
For months, residents have complained of foul smells, difficulty breathing, nausea and rashes. In early March 2018, local officials declared a state of emergency due to the release of gases from the dump.
Then on March 21, more than 50 children were hospitalized with symptoms of poisoning. Ekaterina Volkova, the Volokolamsk district deputy head of education,
said that the cause was presumably hydrogen sulfide seeping out of the landfill. Official measurements showed that the chemical was present at 10 times the maximum allowable concentration.
In late March, as Governor of the Moscow region Andrei Vorobyov tries to respond to protests at the hospital in Volokolamsk, people in the crowds cry ‘Close the dump,’ and Tanya Lozova, a 10-year-old girl, draws her finger across her throat at Vorobyov.
In response, 6,000 residents – more than a quarter of the Volokolamsk population – came out on the streets to demand that the landfill be closed – not simply “modernized,” as district authorities promised in the past.
Protesters carried signs with slogans such as “Stop poisoning us!” and “Don’t kill our children!” The town’s mayor pledged to try to close the landfill, even as local businesspeople supporting the protesters were detained by the police. Now Volokolamsk residents are pursuing their case in court.
The ruble stops with Putin
Garbage protests in Volokolamsk and elsewhere have exposed weaknesses in Russia’s system of political authority, often described as a “power vertical” in which government officials answer not to their constituents, but to their political superiors and ultimately to President Putin. Facing unresponsive or incompetent officials, citizens turn to Putin as the only one who can solve their problems.
In 2017, Yelena Mikhailenko called into President Putin’s annual “Direct Line” call-in show for citizens to complain about noxious emissions from the Kuchino landfill in her neighborhood which caused nausea and vomiting.
“Turning to you is our last hope,” Mikhailenko told the president.
Expressing sympathy, Putin ordered the Kuchino dump closed by presidential order.
The quick resolution of the Kuchino problem was covered favorably in the Russian media, but hardly represents a systemic response to the problem of municipal waste disposal. In fact, Putin’s recognition of what he called “the legitimate negative reaction of people” to widespread problems with trash disposal may have emboldened protesters near other landfills.
Meanwhile, Moscow regional government officials have placed tremendous pressure on those lower in the power vertical to quell the garbage protests and to allow continued transport of waste, including threatening district and town officials with arrest and loss of property.
One beleaguered head of a Moscow region district, Aleksandr Shestun, even issued a direct plea to Putin via YouTube video, outlining the threats made to his family and requesting the president’s assistance.
The fact that those on all sides of the garbage protests feel forced to “appeal to the tsar” illustrates simultaneously the president’s authority and the risk that Putin ultimately may become accountable for failures of basic governance at lower levels.
When well-intentioned citizens confront unaccountable officials, their activities can become more political. I interviewed a municipal civic group leader from St. Petersburg who works on urban ecology and waste. He commented that it has become clear that government officials are responsive not to citizens, but to those “from above” who put them in their offices.
City deputies are not influenced by elections, he lamented, implying that they owe loyalty to political elites, and are not accountable to the people.
Yet when questioned about whether he is ever concerned that the authorities will perceive his work negatively, the leader – who did not want to be identified – reflected on his vision of patriotism.
“It is my country, my city, my people,” he said. “That is more important than any bureaucrat.”
Garbage politics is nudging apolitical activism into a critique of the political system. Unabated, these trends could dent the Putin regime’s legitimacy.
When the government fails to protect citizens from toxic emissions, and citizens have to take to the streets to gain attention, they begin to ask: What is the government for?
Laura A. Henry does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Our work, from the RobustNet Research Group and the Michigan Traffic Laboratory at the University of Michigan, focuses on making sure these next-generation transportation systems are secure and protected from attacks. So far we’ve found they are in fact relatively easy to trick. Just one car that’s transmitting fake data can cause enormous traffic jams, and several attack cars could work together to shut down whole areas. What’s particularly concerning is that our research has found the weakness is not in the underlying communication technology, but in the algorithms actually used to manage the traffic flow.
Misleading an algorithm
In general, algorithms are meant to take in a variety of inputs – such as how many cars are in various locations around an intersection – and calculate an output that meets a particular goal – such as minimizing their collective delay at traffic lights. Like most algorithms, the traffic control algorithm in Intelligent Traffic Signal System – nicknamed “I-SIG” – assumes the inputs it’s getting are honest. That’s not a safe assumption.
The hardware and software in modern cars can be modified, either physically through the car’s diagnostic ports or over wireless connections, to instruct a car to transmit false information. Someone who wanted to compromise the I-SIG system could hack her own car using such methods, drive to a target intersection and park nearby.
Once parked near the intersection, we’ve found that the attacker could take advantage of two weaknesses in the algorithm controlling the light to extend the time a particular lane of traffic gets a green light – and, similarly, the time other lanes get red lights.
The first vulnerability we found, which we call “last vehicle advantage,” is a way of extending the length of a green-light signal. The algorithm keeps an eye on approaching cars, estimates how long the line of cars is and determines how long it thinks it will take for all the vehicles in a line of traffic to get through the intersection. This logic helps the system serve as many vehicles as possible in each round of light changes, but it can be abused. An attacker can instruct her car to falsely report joining the line of cars very late. The algorithm will then hold the attacked light green long enough for this nonexistent car to pass, leading to a green light – and correspondingly, red lights for other lanes – that is much longer than needed for the actual cars on the road.
We called the second weakness we found the “curse of the transition period,” or the “ghost vehicle attack.” The I-SIG algorithm is built to accommodate the fact that not all vehicles can communicate yet. It uses the driving patterns and information of newer, connected cars to infer the real-time location and speed of older, noncommunicating vehicles. Therefore, if a connected car reports that it is stopped a long distance back from an intersection, the algorithm will assume there is a long line of older vehicles queuing ahead of it. Then the system would allocate a long green light for that lane because of the long queue it thinks is there, but really isn’t.
These attacks happen by making a device lie about its own position and speed. That’s very different from known cyberattack methods, like injecting messages into unencrypted communications or having an unauthorized user logging in with a privileged account. Therefore, known protections against those attacks can do nothing about a lying device.
Results from a misinformed algorithm
Using either of these attacks, or both in concert with each other, can allow an attacker to give long periods of green lights to lanes with little or no traffic and longer red lights to the busiest lanes. That causes backups that grow and grow, ultimately building into massive traffic jams.
A congestion attack on a traffic signal control system.
This sort of attack on traffic lights could be just for fun or for the attacker’s own benefit. Imagine, for example, a person who wants to have a faster commute adjusting his own traffic-light timing, at the expense of other drivers’ delays. Criminals, too, might seek to attack traffic lights to ease their getaways from crime scenes or pursuing police cars.
There are even political or financial dangers: A coordinated group could shut down several key intersections in a city and demand a ransom payment. It’s much more disruptive, and easier to get away with, than other ways of blocking intersections, like parking a car across traffic.
Because this type of attack exploits the smart traffic control algorithm itself, fixing it requires joint efforts from both transportation and cybersecurity fields. This includes taking into account one of the broadest lessons of our work: The sensors underlying interactive systems – such as the vehicles in the I-SIG system – aren’t inherently trustworthy. Before engaging in calculations, algorithms should attempt to validate the data they’re using. For example, a traffic-control system could use other sensors – like in-road sensors already in use across the nation – to double-check how many cars are really there.
This is just the beginning of our research into new types of security problems in the smart transportation systems of the future, which we hope will both discover weaknesses and identify ways to protect the roads and the drivers on them.
Qi Alfred Chen receives funding from NSF and University of Michigan.
Z. Morley Mao receives funding from NSF, ONR, and University of Michigan.
A nine-year-old speech by Malaysia’s new Attorney-General Tommy Thomas, in which he slammed Singapore as “Kiasuland”, has been going viral on social media here.
Contrary to speculation that the AG’s remarks comparing constitutional law between Singapore and Malaysia is recent, the AG’s sharp criticism was actually made on 9 Dec 2009 at a public forum in Petaling Jaya. The speech was actually made months after the Perak constitutional crisis, during which Perak’s one-year-old Pakatan Rakyat state government toppled.
Asserting that Malaysia was fortunate to be a member of the Commonwealth nations – since this means it could refer any constitutional disputes with fellow countries who share similar legal systems that originated from the “intellectual home” of Britain – the 66-year-old cited several examples of nations that he considers to have “constitutional courts of respect”.
Making the point that the then-opposition would have won its case had their legal challenge been heard in India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand or South Africa, Thomas then took a jibe at Singapore:
“Here I must say…the one place that Malaysian constitution lawyers never looked to is Singapore. Singapore doesn’t have a constitution, does not have a constitution court, does not have judges, does not have lawyers.
“I cannot read this speech in Singapore. So whenever we criticise Malaysia, we must say we are hundred times better than Kiasuland.”
According to Free Malaysia Today news, “kiasuland” is a derogatory term used by Malaysians to describe Singapore.
Several Singaporeans have been newly sharing Thomas’ remarks on social media, since he was named as Malaysia Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s pick as Attorney-General. Thomas was confirmed as AG by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong yesterday, following a short delay that gave rise to rumours that his appointment failed to achieve royal consent.
Curiously, some Singaporeans sharing Thomas’ remarks said that the AG is not to be blamed for making such a statement. Local human rights activist Jolovan Wham is one such voice who said that Malaysia’s judges were “more independent than Singapore’s for cases with political implications.”
He added on Twitter: “Singapore’s AGC should initiate proceedings against Malaysia’s new AG for scandalising our judiciary, if it wants to prosecute me for criticising our judges.”
Wham, himself, made a similar statement to that of Thomas in a recent Facebook post. He was prosecuted for the statement and the Attorney-General’s Chambers here initiated contempt of court proceedings against Wham over the statement last month.
Another Singaporean, Sukhdev Singh Gill, also felt that Thomas was justified in making such a statement.
While noting that “many proud, loyal and patriotic Singaporeans would never be able to stomach such hard words against our beloved nation,” he added on Facebook, “The speaker, Mr Tommy Thomas should not be blamed as he made such a comparison of Singapore (even Zimbabwe) with England, India, Canada, Australia (even NZ), EC @ Strausbourg and South Africa, because frankly we cannot be compared to those countries mentioned.”
A video was recently widely shared online, showing several rats roaming over and around food containers in what looked like a food stall. The video was accompanied by a description saying it had been filmed at a stall sellingTeochew porridge at at Lorong 35 Geylang.
The owner of the nearest Teochew porridge stall to Lorong 35 Geylang, Mr. Chen, has said that he is cooperating with the police, andthat he would like to find out who circulated the video and the rumor that it was taken at Geylang.
This is not the first time that this particular video was used to get a food establishment in trouble. It was earlier reported to have been filmed at a restaurant in Kuala Lumpur, bit the video actually came from China.
The fact of the matter is that there are no Teochew porridge stalls in Lorong 35 Geylang, and Mr. Chen’s stall is actually located at Lorong 37 Geylang.
However,Mr. Chen says that over 20 customers have asked him about the rat video since it was circulated, and that he has lost around 10 percent of his business. Additionally, the other food stalls nearby have reported losses as well. He believes that the video was spread because of envy over the success of his business, but he is concerned that his stall will suffer further if the rumors are not quashed.
He is working with local authorities to find out who circulated the video and connected it to his business, and also to avoid more fake news from being spread further.
Singapore’s Ashton Chen Yongzhao, who once ranked in the world’s top 50 badminton players, will plead guilty to charges of sexual offenses against a minor.
Mr. Chen, 28, was in criminal court on Monday, June 4, and is scheduled to appear in court again on June 27. He was charged two months ago of a total of six offences, among them having had nonsexual sex with an underage girl. He has since posted bail amounting to S$15,000.
The young woman with whom Mr. Chen was accused of sexual offences was only 13, four years ago, when she purportedly performed oral sex on the badminton player. What kind of relationship that they had, and even how they met, has not been disclosed, but the sexual act is supposed to have occurred in the landing of a staircase in Block 935 Tampines St 91.
They allegedly had sexual intercourse and oral sex again in 2015 and 2016, at times meeting at a carparkin Block 248 Simei Street 2 and at Eastpoint Mall in Simei, in one of the nursing rooms.
Mr. Chen was once ranked number two among singles badminton players in the whole country. He was on the men’s team that won second place in the Southeast Asian Games of 2007, as well as in 2009 and 2011, when the team finished in third place. He retired from badminton in 2014, at which time he was ranked 69th in the world.
Mr. Chen faces a jail sentence of up to 20 years, fines or a caning, should he be convicted of having had consensual sex with a child under 14 years old. Should his conviction be for consensual sex with a child between 14 and 15 years old, he could be looking at 10 years in jail, along with a fine.
