Proprietors of a church who allegedly failed to honour an $18.5 million deal to sell its Bedok premises and lease another site in Eunos are being taken to court for damages and breach of contract.

Legacy Strategies, the buyer of the building that houses Bethesda Community Church, has named the church’s pastor Philip Tan and five others as defendants, in seeking to enforce the sale.

The church has also intervened in the case, claiming that the six defendants are not authorised to sell the premises, according to court documents filed.

A High Court pre-trial conference is due next week.

Legacy Strategies, an investment holding company owned by businessman Chaw Chong Foo, had inked the deal to buy the Bedok property in June 2014. The deal also required the sellers to obtain HDB’s approval for the sale. It provided for Legacy to buy up the shares of the Newgate Learning Hub, the registered proprietor of the 99-year HDB lease on the property within which the church operates.

Legacy, through lawyers from Lee & Lee, further allege that the transfer of the sale shares was agreed by both parties to be completed by March last year but remains incomplete. They also allege that the defendants failed to seek HDB’s clearance for the sale.

Contesting the claims, Pastor Tan and the other defendants, who are church trustees, claim that they were misled by Mr Chaw and induced into the deal. The defendants include Newglobe Venture, the corporate vehicle set up to manage the assets of the church.

They claim the deal was conditional upon the church leasing new premises at 115 Eunos Avenue, which is understood by The Straits Times to be used by three other church groups on the third and fouth levels of the building.

The multi-storey complex at 115 Eunos Avenue is owned by Zhaolim Pte Ltd, which is owned by Mr Chaw.

In court documents filed by their lawyer Lawrence Chua, the defendants argue that they are not obliged to go through with the sale as it was conditional on them taking up the tenancy at 115 Eunos Avenue, which they have rescinded.

They claim to be justified to rescind the tenancy pact based on the alleged misrepresentation by Mr Chaw.

Such issues nullified the initial in-principle agreement by Pastor Tan, after consulting the rest of the church leaders in early 2014, for the sale of the Bedok premises to Mr Chaw, said the defence.

They also added in court documents filed that Mr Chaw had breached a collateral contract in assigning the third floor instead of the promised fourth floor of the building. They further said the terms of the contract were also unfair, which the plaintiff disputes.

The 200-strong church community has also weighed in on the case, with Rodyk & Davidson lawyers led by Senior Counsel Lok Vi Ming filing court papers on its behalf.

Among other things, it argues that while Pastor Tan and the other defendants form the church executive committee, they do not have express powers under the church Constitution to sell the property.

It says the Bedok premises was bought with donations and governed by a charitable purpose trust, of which the church is the beneficiary.

It further claims that the $18.5 million sale price was a ” substantial undervalue” and the sales pact is voidable at the church’s behest.

The church wants the court to void the Newgate share sale.

It is understood that Bethesda leaders have informed church members of the ongoing court case.

vijayan@sph.com.sg

melodyz@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on May 23, 2016.
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Mr Ng Chai Lai dated his girlfriend for six years before popping the question in 2013. But instead of a marriage proposal, he offered her the gift of life – one of his kidneys.

Back then, Ms Chua Bee Leng had been on the waiting list for a kidney transplant for 10 years after an autoimmune disease caused her kidneys to fail in 2004.

“I thought he was joking. I had already given up hope of receiving a kidney as my family members were unsuitable. Who would have thought a boyfriend would do that?” said Ms Chua, 47.

The transplant was done in December 2013. Such transplants, between people who are not family members, are few and far between.

The transplant was nothing less than a miracle due to three factors, said Mr Ng, 47, a taxi driver.

First, the doctor told them that should they have wanted a transplant a few years earlier, it would not have been possible. Both had different blood types and it was only recent medical advancements that enabled the transplant to proceed.

Second, Mr Ng was a former drug abuser who had been behind bars for close to 20 years. He first met Ms Chua while undergoing rehabilitation at a halfway house, as she was visiting her brother, who was then also a drug addict.

Due to Mr Ng’s history of drug abuse, he had to get the nod from the authorities and a transplant ethics committee, as well as go through a battery of tests, before the transplant was approved.

Third, doctors found that one of Ms Chua’s coronary arteries was blocked and she needed heart bypass surgery before the transplant.

But the couple were willing to go through the obstacles as Ms Chua had been in great pain while on dialysis. Several operations had to be done to create a fistula in her arms, legs, neck and thigh for blood to enter and leave her body during dialysis.

Serious infections kept setting in and she had to be hospitalised almost weekly. Mr Ng recalled that her screams of pain were so loud that everyone in the ward could hear them. After her thrice-weekly dialysis sessions, she would be so weak that she could not walk home.

“The doctor said she did not have much time left and I made up my mind to give my kidney to her.

“I figured that even if my health fails after that, better to have two of us around for that short span of time than me having two kidneys yet end up losing her,” said Mr Ng.

Ms Chua’s quality of life improved greatly after the transplant.

She is now able to work as a part-time cashier. In her downtime, she jogs slowly or does brisk walking. Mr Ng also recovered quickly. He said being a donor has not affected his health at all.

Both of them have since applied for a flat in Bukit Batok and intend to marry in the next two years.

Said Ms Chua: “He made a noble sacrifice and I am forever indebted and grateful. Life is no longer the same now.”

jantai@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on May 23, 2016.
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It was around noon on Saturday that the teen got the disturbing news.

Toh Wei Xue, 17, was at his lion dance practice when he received a call from his sister Angela, 13.

“She said our mother got into a road accident,” he told The New Paper at his mother’s wake last night.

Madam Lau Lee Kiau, 46, was on her way to work on Saturday morning when the motorcycle she was on was involved in an accident with a car and a taxi.

Thinking his mother was only slightly injured, Wei Xue said he was not too worried – until he got home.

There, he and Angela found out that their mother had died but no one told them which hospital she was in.

That started the frantic search for the hospital their mother was at.

“We didn’t know where she was or which hospital she was taken to. I called every hospital, giving them my mother’s name but was told she wasn’t there,” he said.

“As a last resort, I called the Traffic Police and was told she was taken to Tan Tock Seng Hospital,” he said. Madam Lau’s identity was initially listed as “unknown” which was why her children could not locate her.

“By the time we got there, she was already gone,” said Wei Xue.

“She didn’t leave any last words. We never got to say goodbye.”

TEARS

Madam Lau Lee Kiau was riding pillion on her boyfriend’s motorcycle when the accident occurred. Photo: Lianhe Wanbao

He looked away, as tears welled up.

It was at the hospital that the Toh siblings overheard that the driver involved in the accident that killed their mother was underage.

The driver was 17.

“He is the same age as me and he killed my mother,” said Wei Xue.

TNP understands that the driver fled the scene of the accident but was later arrested by the police.

Remembering their mother, Wei Xue and Angela said Madam Lau, a divorcee, held three jobs “to put food on the table and a roof over our heads”.

“She brought us up single-handedly since she and our father divorced,” said Wei Xue.

“She worked very hard to bring us up. Life was not easy for her,” Angela added.

“Despite that, she remained cheerful and caring. She was always very helpful,” said Wei Xue.

Madam Lau’s friends and relatives milled around at her wake, providing support for the Toh siblings.

Her wake, lasting five days, is at Bedok North, where the family lives. Her funeral will be held on Thursday.

And while her personal effects were returned to the family, her mobile phone remains missing.

“We want to make a plea to whoever found our mother’s phone to please return it. It contains a lot of memories and we want it back,” said Angela, her eyes brimming with tears.

juditht@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on May 23, 2016.
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This story was first published in July 2015 in an e-book titled Guilty As Charged: 25 Crimes That Have Shaken Singapore Since 1965. A collaboration between The Straits Times and the Singapore Police Force, the e-book appeared in The Straits Times Star E-books app.

Factory supervisor Leong Siew Chor stole his young lover’s ATM card and withdrew money from her account. Then fearing that she would identify him, he killed her and dismembered the body into seven parts.

Leong Siew Chor was 50, married with three children and a supervisor at Agere Systems Singapore, a circuit board company in Serangoon North. Ms Liu Hong Mei was a 22-year-old from China, who worked under Leong as a production operator.

They were lovers, and had been for a year.

Leong Siew Chor, who was married with three children, killed his lover and chopped her body into seven parts. Photo: Police File

But that did not stop Leong from killing Ms Liu – all to prevent police from finding out that he stole her ATM card and withdrew $2,000 from her account.

It was 9.15am on June 16, 2005, and cleaner Murugan Kaniapan was going about his daily rounds when he spotted a waterlogged, brown cardboard box sealed with masking tape on the banks of the Kallang River, a popular spot for sea-sports enthusiasts.

Curious, the 27-year-old tried to pick up the parcel to throw it away but the water damage was too severe.

The box fell apart in his hands, revealing its contents: a green plastic bag containing what looked like fresh meat.

Suspicions aroused, he used a twig to pull apart the loosely-knotted bag. “That was when I saw the lower half of a woman’s body,” he said. Decomposition had not set in and “the flesh looked very fresh, like she was not dead”.

Her naked body had been cleanly severed at the pelvis and knee joints.

Mr Murugan added: “There was no blood and no smell. I could see the bone at the knee was very white.”

Soon after, police found a red and white box 300m downstream on the opposite bank.

In it was another green plastic bag.

It contained the upper torso of a woman’s body. The arms and hands were intact. The decapitated head however was missing.

A massive search was conducted for the other missing parts, including the woman’s feet.

A 30-man battalion of Special Operations police officers scoured the banks and bushes surrounding the river. Police Coast Guard boats patrolled the river up to its opening with the sea.

Two days later, a decomposed head wrapped in newspaper and stuffed into a yellow plastic bag labelled “Artfriend” and legs were found at a Tuas incinerator plant. The bags had been picked up at the Singapore River and brought to the plant by garbage collectors.

By then police already had Leong in custody.

After the first of the shocking finds, police compared fingerprints to a database of foreign workers. Colleagues of Ms Liu, who came to Singapore in 2003 to work, had already lodged a police report that she was missing.

That very night, police went to Agere Systems and questioned Leong, who worked the night shift.

He appeared nervous, according to Acting Inspector Roy Lim – he stammered and his hands trembled.

Leong was arrested the next day.

Police soon pieced together how the gruesome murder happened.

On June 13, the couple had gone to Hotel 81 at Geylang Lorong 20. Leong stole her POSB ATM card from her bag while she was in the shower, after having sex. He used it to make withdrawals and to buy items. He took out most of her savings – over $2,000.

The next day, Ms Liu made a police report about her missing ATM card. That evening, she told Leong about the report and how she was advised that she could look at CCTV footage to see if she could identify the thief.

On June 15, he brought her back to his flat in Block 114, Geylang Lorong 3, then strangled her. Using a chopper and a rubber mallet, he cut her into seven pieces: two feet; two legs above the knee; lower torso; upper torso; and head.

He dumped the parts in different parts of Singapore. He threw her feet and clothes in rubbish bins at Ubi Road, after cycling there.

Her handbag went into a bin outside Ang Mo Kio MRT station on his way to work.

But the parts he had thrown into the Kallang River proved his undoing. They surfaced and drifted to the banks.

The trial next year set the stage for the gory retelling of Leong’s crime. More than 280 photographs of Ms Liu’s body parts were shown, to the horror of the gallery.

It looked like cuts had been made to her private parts. Her upper torso had an open wound on the left shoulder. Her stomach and decomposed organs could be seen.

Masking tape with strands of hair, a chopper and a black rubber mallet were found in Leong’s home. A stack of Chinese newspapers and green plastic bags were also found. Traces of blood were discovered on three pails, on the kitchen toilet wall and on the back of the toilet bowl. Pictures of his 24-year-old son’s room showed several yellow bags with the word “Artfriend”. The sides of a lift in the block also had blood stains.

Leong claimed the couple had decided to commit suicide but he chickened out.

On the morning of June 15, he said, he and his lover had gone to his flat. After hugging and kissing for 20 minutes, she asked him to follow her to China, he claimed.

Leong did not want to – he was too old to start afresh; and could not abandon his wife and three children. He said she suggested that they die together.

She wanted to go first to show her sincerity, he said. Leong then strangled her with a towel. “It was the look on her face that made me decide not to strangle myself,” he said.

On May 19, 2006, Justice Tay Yong Kwang sentenced Leong to death.

He rubbished the claims of a suicide pact, finding that Ms Liu, “a lively, young woman in the vernal stage of her life”, who was doing well in her job, was keen to forward her studies, and looking forward to attending her sister’s wedding, had no reason to want to end her life.

“In the classic tragic tale of ill-fated love, the luckless lover committed suicide. Here, Romeo killed Juliet. It was a most disgusting and despicable murder. Liu Hong Mei died a very cruel, heartbreaking death.”

Afraid that Ms Liu would point him out as the person who stole her ATM card after watching CCTV footage, possibly costing him his job and family’s respect, Leong had decided “to silence her forever and save himself”.

“The accused stole the deceased’s heart, then pilfered her card and hard-earned savings, and finally robbed her of her life.”

In September that year, his appeal was rejected by a three-judge panel.

Justice V.K. Rajah again rejected the claims of a suicide pact. “If he could not bear to leave his family, why would he want to take his life away?”

Justice Choo Han Teck added: “Which man who claims to love a woman so much that he follows her to her death would steal her ATM card and money?”

After his clemency appeal was rejected, he was hanged on Nov 30, 2007

HOW HE KILLED AND CHOPPED HER UP

Photo: The New Paper

Leong first brought Ms Liu to his flat and then strangled her. using a towel.

Using a chopper and a rubber mallet, he cut her into seven pieces: her two feet; two legs above the knee; lower torso; upper torso; and head.

STRANGERS AT HER FUNERAL

Ms Liu’s coffin was covered by 260 crimson roses. Undertaker Roland Tay (third from the left) organised the funeral for free. Photo: The Straits Times

Ms Liu Hong Mei’s funeral on July 11, 2005, was attended by 150 people – from well wishers to curious gawkers. Many said they were sorry for the victim. Undertaker Roland Tay and his wife Sally Ho led the ceremony.

Ms Liu’s sister Hong Wei could not bear to attend, and had her own personal difficulties.

Mr Tay, who collected more that $20,000 in donations, said he would hand the money to the sister. He was also told to take Ms Liu’s ashes back to her family in Chang Chun village in China.

An 80-year-old retiree who turned up for the funeral commented: “Some of those here look as if they are here to see a show.” Chinese newspapers reported that some who came hoped to find lucky lottery numbers. Ms Liu, whose coffin was filled with her favourite toys, books and clothes, was cremated in Mandai that day.

This article was first published on May 17, 2016.
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