The man who abducted the elderly mother of Sheng Siong supermarket chain founder Lim Hock Chee in 2014 and demanded a $20 million ransom will be jailed for life and given three strokes of the cane, after his appeal was rejected.

Lee Sze Yong, 44, had asked for the death penalty after he was convicted in December last year, saying that he could not bear the thought of “hopeless years ahead”. He did not appeal against his sentence.

Yesterday, Lee, who had argued his case before the Court of Appeal without a lawyer, said: “Undoubtedly, I had committed a crime.”

Head shaved, wearing a purple prison jumpsuit and holding sheets of paper in his hands, he argued that the question was whether the state of his mind “lies within the language of Section 3 of the Kidnapping Act”.

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2014-01-09 16:49:17

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Kidnapped: Sheng Siong CEO’s mother

Source: Singapore Police Force, Sheng Siong Group, Lianhe Zaobao, ,

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The provision states that an individual who abducts someone with intent to hold that person for ransom faces either the death penalty or life imprisonment with caning.

Read also: Sheng Siong kidnap suspect’s first target was billionaire Peter Lim’s children

Lee repeated the point he had made during his trial – that he was not guilty of kidnap for ransom because he had intended to release Madam Ng Lye Poh by midnight that very day, whether or not the ransom was paid. But the three-judge court dismissed his argument.

Read also: Sheng Siong kidnapping trial: I was trying my luck, says accused

Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon noted that the trial judge did not accept Lee’s assertion. “Even if the appellant did have the intention to release the victim by the end of that fateful day… the offence was complete when he abducted (her) with intent to hold her for ransom.”

This article by The Straits Times was published in The New Paper, a free newspaper published by Singapore Press Holdings.

Some Singtel subscribers have received phishing e-mails, seemingly sent by the telco, telling them “Your Singtel bill is now available for download”.

The bills are all in the $200 range. Some e-mails were sent from a Singtel e-mail address and others from SingNet.

Singtel subscriber Steven Low, 39, received the first e-mail last Friday. His bill was given as $234.19 and there was an attachment that he did not open.

The civil servant, who called The New Paper’s hotline, said: “The bill was significantly higher than usual, but because I went overseas this month, I thought it contributed to the amount.”

Mr Low, who pays his Singtel bills by Giro, received another five similar e-mails.

“More warning bells rang when I realised the amount in each e-mail was different. I was worried and called Singtel’s customer service. Some customers may not check and just pay.”

Another Singtel subscriber, Mr Jasper Loh, 38, a helpdesk engineer, also received similar phishing e-mails.

He said: “I clicked on the link, which opened a blank page and downloaded a file. Luckily, my company’s website security blocked the download. I’m guessing the file will install a virus.”

“Singtel should do something to stop these phishing e-mails,” he added.

When contacted, a Singtel spokesman said it was aware of the issue.

She said: “These are phishing e-mails and are not from Singtel. We advise recipients of these e-mails to delete them immediately.

“Once informed of such malicious e-mails, we took prompt action to take down the malicious sites linked to these e-mails and to block them.”

Mr David Maciejak, head of cybersecurity firm Fortinet’s FortiGuard Lion R&D team for Asia Pacific, told TNP it is dangerous to click on the links.

“The links lead to domains which have been flagged as malicious by our FortiGuard Labs malware detection engines,” he said.

“A malware file will be downloaded onto the user’s computer… and facilitate the downloading of more malicious files.”

Mr Maciejak added that anything can be downloaded, including ransomware that will lock up the user’s computer, or malware that may be able to access and steal personal details.

Mr Tony Jarvis, Check Point Software Technologies’ chief strategist for threat prevention in Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, said the links pointed to free online servers with short lifespans that will automatically download files to the end user machine.

Mr Jarvis said the Singtel e-mail address could be forged by e-mail spoofing.

He said: “It’s the creation of e-mail messages with a forged sender address. It can be easily achieved by using the right tools and can be done at no cost.”

He reminds users to read the entire e-mail, especially if they are worried about its validity.

“They should contact their service provider if they have any doubts. If the e-mail is about their billing, users can think back if the e-mail is sent in their usual billing cycle,” he said.

This article was first published on Mar 23, 2017.
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A woman who conceived a baby with a stranger’s sperm in a fertility treatment mix-up has suffered a loss of “genetic affinity” and is entitled to damages worth nearly a third of the cost for bringing up the child.

That was the decision of the Court of Appeal, released yesterday, in a long-running case between the couple and Thomson Fertility Centre’s parent company, Thomson Medical, and two embryologists.

In 2010, the woman and her husband went to the centre for in-vitro fertilisation (IVF). A stranger’s sperm, instead of her husband’s, was used to fertilise her eggs. The mistake resulted in her giving birth to a baby girl.

In 2012, the woman sued for damages, including for the upkeep of the child, known as Baby P in court proceedings. In 2015, the High Court disallowed the claim, citing policy considerations which view the birth of a healthy child as a blessing.

She appealed and the Court of Appeal upheld the High Court’s decision on the issue of upkeep costs, ruling it would be against public policy.

“The law views the responsibilities of parenthood as obligations of a legal and moral character which arise in relation to the birth of new life; these obligations are incapable of valuation as ‘loss’ in any meaningful sense and cannot be the subject of a claim for damages,” the court explained.

But the court also decided that the woman has suffered a loss of “genetic affinity”.

Read also: Thomson Medical IVF mix-up: Mum ‘still anguished’

“The ordinary human experience is that parents and children are bound by ties of blood, and this fact of biological experience ­- heredity – carries deep socio-cultural significance…

“And when… a person has been denied this experience due to the negligence of others, then she has lost something of profound significance and has suffered a serious wrong.

“This loss of ‘affinity’ can also result in social stigma and embarrassment arising out of the misperceptions of others, as was the case here.”

As for how much the woman can claim, the court considered that it should be set at 30 per cent of the financial costs of raising Baby P, with the precise quantum to be determined by the High Court. The Court of Appeal said it would be preferable for the parties to arrive at an amicable settlement so closure might be achieved.

This article by The Straits Times was published in The New Paper, a free newspaper published by Singapore Press Holdings.

SINGAPORE – A Singaporean woman inseminated with a stranger’s sperm in a startling in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) mistake cannot be compensated in full for raising the child, the city-state’s top court ruled Wednesday.

Allowing the woman compensation would go against public policy on one’s obligations as a parent, the Court of Appeal said, adding that the expenses incurred in raising the child should not be considered as a loss.

“The duty to maintain one’s child is a duty which lies at the very heart of parenthood, and thus the expenses which are incurred… are not capable of characterisation as a loss,” the five-judge appeals court wrote in a 141-page ruling.

In a long-running lawsuit that started in 2012, the woman sued a private hospital, its fertility clinic and two fertility doctors after she was inseminated with the wrong sperm.

According to court documents, it was the second time that the ethnic Chinese Singaporean woman had IVF treatment at the privately-owned clinic. Her German husband is of Caucasian descent.

But she was mistakenly inseminated with the sperm of a complete stranger, an Indian man.

The mistake surfaced only after the child was born and her parents realised she had a different skin tone from her brother.

Worried she might have a genetic problem, the child – known as Baby P in court proceedings – was sent for tests which revealed the mix-up.

The hospital admitted to its mistake – there had been two sets of sperm in the processing area – and was fined S$20,000 in 2011.

The mother sued for damages in 2012 for mental distress as well as pain and suffering relating to the pregnancy, and for upkeep of the child.

This was dismissed by a lower court and upheld by the appeals court on Wednesday.

The judges noted that Baby P was a healthy child who was planned for and that allowing a claim would mean recognising the birth as a mistake.

However, the court also ruled that the woman had suffered a loss of “genetic affinity” with the child and should be awarded damages which come up to 30 percent of the cost of raising Baby P.

“This loss of ‘affinity’ can also result in social stigma and embarrassment arising out of the misperceptions of others, as was the case here.”

The girl, who will be seven this year, is attending an international school in Beijing where the family is now based.