Public Prosecutor v Tan Chip Huat

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Shawn Ho
• Judgment Date: 19 August 2022
• Neutral Citation: [2022] SGDC 180
• Court: District Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: District Arrest Case No. 920748 of 2017 & Ors
• Published date: 26 August 2022
• Year: 2022
• Hearing Date: 19 August 2022,25 July 2022
• Plaintiff Counsel: Eric Hu (Attorney-General's Chambers)
• Defendant Counsel: Jerald Foo and Levin Lin (Oon & Bazul LLP,CLAS assigned)
• Subject Matter: Criminal Procedure and Sentencing,Sentencing,Corrective Training
• Citation: [2022] SGDC 180

District Judge Shawn Ho: Introduction

The arc of the Accused’s crimes can be traced to more than 20 years ago. Given his many dishonesty-related antecedents, culminating in 7 years of Corrective Training in 2013, the Accused’s past assumed a certain salience.

The Accused faced 20 charges. He pleaded guilty to 7 charges under ss 420, 420A and 506 of the Penal Code and s 3(1)(b) of the Protection from Harassment Act.¹ His methods of deceit morphed from chat lines to Yahoo! Message boards to social media platforms such as Gumtree, Craigslist and Locanto.² In the present case, he used a similar modus operandi and preyed on female victims — female strangers, female escorts and female teenagers.³ He wined and dined a victim at Fullerton Hotel,⁴ booked hotel rooms in or near the Central Business District,⁵ and told a 17-year old girl of his gift of a Chopard necklace, which was untrue.⁶ This foreshadowed a cadence of lies, made manifest by bank account screenshots,⁷ bounced cheques,⁸ and a video of him depositing a cheque (which bounced).⁹

He obtained sexual services from girls as young as 17 without making any payment through deception.¹⁰ Ill-treatment was visited upon his victims. For example, halfway during sex with V5, V5 told him to stop as it was painful for her; he stopped for a brief moment but asked her to try to continue — he then inserted his penis into V5’s vagina, causing her to scream out of pain.¹¹ And he afforded the victims little sympathy, as evidenced from his criminal intimidation charge and another offence of threatening to beat up a 17-year old victim and her baby.

Accordingly, it does not lie in his mouth to say that the Escalation principle should not apply to his present charges. At its heart, specific deterrence is engaged for his reprehensible conduct.

The Prosecution sought at least 10 years of Corrective Training (“CT”). The Defence nailed its colours to the mast of a regular imprisonment term.¹²

All things considered, I sentenced the Accused to 9 years of CT.

Charges

The Accused pleaded guilty to 7 charges under ss 420, 420A and 506 of the Penal Code and s 3(1)(b) of the Protection from Harassment Act (“POHA”). These 7 charges were as follows:

[2nd charge] You, Tan Chip Huat (Chen Jifa), are charged that you, in early May 2021, in Singapore, did cheat one [redacted] (Female, 25 years old), by deceiving her into believing that you will transfer a sum of $77,000 to her to pay her debts and for her to safe-keep the remaining sum for you, a fact which you knew to be false, and by such manner of deception, you had dishonestly induced the said [redacted] to deliver a sum of $11,645.36 to you, and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 420 of the Penal Code (Chapter 224, 2008 Revised Edition).¹³

[6th charge] You, Tan Chip Huat (Chen Jifa), are charged that you, on 5 July 2021, at 51 Lavender Street, Fragrance Hotel Lavender, Singapore, did obtain services for yourself dishonestly from one [redacted] (female, 23 years old), to wit, by deceiving her to believe that you will pay her a sum of $10,000 for a long-term sexual relationship with you, and her sexual services were made available to you on the basis that payment will be made for or in respect of them, and you obtained her sexual services without any payment having been made for or in respect of them, and when you obtained her sexual services, you knew that her sexual services were being made available to you on the basis that payment will be made for or in respect of them, and you intended that payment will not be made, and by such manner of deception, you dishonestly induced her to deliver her sexual services to you, which she would not have done so had she not been so deceived, and you have thereby committed an offence under Section 420A(1) and punishable under Section 420A(2) of the Penal Code. (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed).¹⁴

[7th charge] You, Tan Chip Huat (Chen Jifa), are charged that you, between 5 and 6 January 2021, at Room 407 of D’Hotel, 231 Outram Road, Singapore, did obtain services for yourself dishonestly from one [redacted] (female, 17 years old), to wit, by deceiving her to believe that you will pay her a sum of S$20,000 in exchange for her providing you sexual services, and her sexual services were made available to you on the basis that payment will be made for or in respect of them, and you obtained her sexual services without any payment having been made for or in respect of them, and when you obtained her sexual services, you knew that her sexual services were being made available to you on the basis that payment will be made for or in respect of them, and you intended that payment will not be made, and by such manner of deception, you dishonestly induced her to deliver her sexual services to you, which she would not have done so had she not been so deceived, and you have thereby committed an offence under Section 420A(1) and punishable under Section 420A(2) of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed).¹⁵

[8th charge] You, Tan Chip Huat (Chen Jifa), are charged that you, between 8 and 9 January 2021, at Room 0810 of Robertson Quay Hotel, 15 Merbau Road, Singapore, did obtain services for yourself dishonestly from one [redacted] (female, 17 years old), to wit, by deceiving her to believe that you will pay her a sum of S$1,000 in exchange for her providing you sexual services, and her sexual services were made available to you on the basis that payment will be made for or in respect of them, and you obtained her sexual services without any payment having been made for or in respect of them, and when you obtained her sexual services, you knew that her sexual services were being made available to you on the basis that payment will be made for or in respect of them, and you intended that payment will not be made, and by such manner of deception, you dishonestly induced her to deliver her sexual services to you, which she would not have done so had she not been so deceived, and you have thereby committed an offence under Section 420A(1) and punishable under Section 420A(2) of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed).¹⁶

[11th charge] You, Tan Chip Huat (Chen Jifa), are charged that you, between 13 and 14 January 2021, at Room 1118 of Hotel Royal, 36 Newton Road, Singapore, did obtain services for yourself dishonestly from one [redacted] (female, 17 years old), to wit, by deceiving her to believe that you will pay her a sum of S$3,000 in exchange for her providing you sexual services, and her sexual services were made available to you on the basis that payment will be made for or in respect of them, and you obtained her sexual services without any payment having been made for or in respect of them, and when you obtained her sexual services, you knew that her sexual services were being made available to you on the basis that payment will be made for or in respect of them, and you intended that payment will not be made, and by such manner of deception, you dishonestly induced her to deliver her sexual services to you, which she would not have done so had she not been so deceived, and you have thereby committed an offence under Section 420A(1) and punishable under Section 420A(2) of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed).¹⁷

[17th charge] You, Tan Chip Huat (Chen Jifa), are charged that you, during the wee hours of 8 January 2021, in Singapore, did commit criminal intimidation by threatening one [redacted] with injury to reputation of her close friend, [redacted], to wit, by shouting at her over the phone that you would expose her as a social escort who provided sexual services so that she would “get into trouble with the law”, and demanding the said [redacted] to deliver a S$500 loan to you as the means of avoiding execution of such threat, and you have thereby committed the offence punishable under Section 506 (first limb) of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed).¹⁸

[20th charge] You, Tan Chip Huat (Chen Jifa), are charged that you, on 20 January 2021, in Room 309 of Hotel 1887, Singapore, did make threatening communication to one [redacted] over the phone, to wit, by demanding her to return the money that [redacted] had transferred her to the said [redacted] or else you would look up her address and beat her and her baby up, and as a result causing her alarm, and you have thereby contravened Section 3(1)(b), an offence punishable under Section 3(2) of the Protection from Harassment Act (Cap 256A, 2015 Rev Ed).¹⁹

13 other charges were taken into consideration for sentencing purposes, i.e. under ss 420 and 420A of the Penal Code and s 3(1)(b) POHA.²⁰

Summary of facts

The accused is Tan Chip Huat, a 49-year-old male Singaporean.²¹

Facts relating to the 2nd charge (DAC 920748-2021)

The first victim is [redacted], female, 25 years old (“V1”).

On 15 June 2021 at 11.23 p.m., V1 made a police report stating that she had been cheated by the accused.

Sometime in early May 2021, V1 became acquainted with the accused on a social media platform Locanto. Both the accused and V1 were looking for casual sex. They met up frequently every two to three days. The accused introduced himself as someone who was working in finance industry handling high-end clients. He also boasted to her that he had a personal driver to chauffeur him around. In actual fact, the accused did not have a job at this point and did not have any other sources of income.

V1 shared with the accused that she had credit card debts of about S$5,000. During their third meet-up, the accused offered to settle V1’s debts. According to V1, he made V1 believe that he would transfer a sum of S$77,000 to her to pay off her debts. He showed V1 a screenshot of a S$77,000 bank transfer purportedly made to V1’s bank account. When V1 enquired the purpose of the transfer to her bank account, the accused told V1 that he was bad at managing his finances and he wanted V1 to safekeep the remaining amount for him...