Man gets 12 weeks’ jail in online vice ring case

SINGAPORE: A fifth man was sentenced on Friday after pleading guilty to having paid sex with an underage girl in a high—profile online vice ring case.

35—year—old Tan Kok Wee, a former Singapore Armed Forces personnel, was sentenced to 12 weeks’ jail for having paid sex with the girl, who was 17 years old at the time.

The court heard that Tan had come across her services online and contacted her pimp Tan Boon Thiew on October 22, 2010. Tan then met the girl at Hotel 81 Bencoolen on October 23, 2010, where he paid her S$500 for sex.

He did not ask to see her identification.

Under Singapore law, it is an offence to have paid sex with a girl below 18 years of age.

Tan is one of 51 men implicated in the online vice ring case. He is a first—time offender and will start serving his sentence on Friday.

The prosecution called for Tan’s sentence to be in line with three other men who have already received similar sentences for the same offence, as the facts of the case are similar.

Ex—police officer Tan Wee Kiat, product manager Chiang Meng Chuan, and former executive director of the Singapore Environment Council Howard Shaw, were all sentenced to 12 weeks’ jail.

Shaw is out on a S$10,000 bail pending appeal.

The prosecution added that Tan did not have comparable mitigating factors as former principal of Pei Chun Public School Lee Lip Hong, who was jailed nine weeks for a similar offence with the same underage girl.

Lee, who the prosecution said had a strong record of service in education sector, was released from Changi Prison in June after six weeks. The early remission was because of good behaviour.

Earlier on Friday morning, engineer Lee Tian Song, 33, pleaded guilty to paying the same girl S$450 for sex at Hotel 81 Bencoolen in September 2010.

He will be sentenced on October 2.

—CNA/ac