Judge convicts Sentosa Cove resident of hurting 2 maids, says her denials 'not credible'

SINGAPORE — A woman who claimed trial to eight charges of voluntarily causing hurt to two of her domestic workers at her Sentosa Cove residence in 2018 was convicted by a district court on Friday (Dec 9) of all but one of those charges.

For the remaining charge, Tan Lee Hoon, 58, was granted a discharge amounting to an acquittal.

Tan had denied hurting the two domestic helpers during a trial that took place over 21 days beginning in December 2020.

In convicting Tan of the seven charges, District Judge Salina Ishak said that she was not a credible witness.

The judge will sentence Tan on Jan 12 next year and granted her bail of S$15,000 pending the sentencing.

WHAT HAPPENED

All of the charges were roughly similar to each other, and relate to Tan assaulting her two Filipino maids— Ms Lizardo Joan Lozares and Ms Jenefer Vegafria Arangote — repeatedly, starting from September 2018.

The offences took place at Tan's residence on Paradise Island, one of the five man-made islands at Sentosa Cove on Sentosa Island.

The charge Tan was acquitted of accused the woman of hitting Ms Lozares’ torso with a stick sometime in 2018 at the residence.

While both Ms Lozares and Ms Vegafria were employed by Tan’s husband, Mr Sim Guan Huat, in August 2018, it was Tan who had primarily managed their day-to-day duties.

The court heard that in one incident, Tan had hurt Ms Lozares by kicking her chest while the latter was helping her employer put on her socks and shoes.

In her evidence, Ms Lozares said that Tan was angry with her for putting on the socks wrongly.

Tan was also said to have pinched Ms Vegafria’s chest, stomach, left arm, right bicep and right thigh.

During the trial, it was revealed that Tan had many medical conditions, had difficulty sleeping and needed to be massaged — which Ms Lozares and Ms Vegafria took turns to do — at unusual times of the day because she was “injured”.

Separately, Sim, 60, was sentenced to five weeks' jail and an S$8,000 fine on May 25 last year for illegally employing Ms Lozares.

QUESTION OF CREDIBILITY

In delivering her grounds of decision, District Judge Salina noted the case is not one where the prosecution is “relying solely on the uncorroborated testimony” of a victim against the accused.

Instead, she said the prosecution sought to rely not only on the testimonies of Ms Lozares and Ms Vegafria, but also documentary evidence, as well as evidence of independent witnesses.

As such, the judge said she disagreed with submissions by Tan’s lawyers — Mr Derek Kang and Mr Ammar Lulla of Cairnhill Law LLC — that evidence by Ms Lozares and Ms Vegafria “had to be unusually convincing” for the prosecution to sustain a conviction against Tan.

District Judge Salina said that during the trial, the defence had tried to impeach the credibility of all of the prosecution's witnesses, including Ms Lozares, Ms Vegafria and two other domestic workers previously employed by Tan, based on inconsistencies between their oral testimonies and their previous statements.

The judge did not go into detail of the explanation the women gave for the inconsistencies. However, she said she had taken the explanations into consideration, and was of the view that they were “not so material as to affect the crux of the charges”.

As such, District Judge Salina said she was “moving that (the women’s) credit had not been impeached”.

Said the judge: “I have found both Joan and Jenefer's evidence to be credible and internally consistent in respect of the seven charges (Tan was convicted of).”

She added that it was also consistent with the evidence from the various prosecution witnesses.

Turning to Tan’s denials of the abuse, District Judge Salina said she “did not find (Tan) to be a credible witness” as her evidence was inconsistent with statements given by two other domestic workers who were previously employed in Tan’s household.

These two maids, said the judge, had testified that Tan was abusive towards Ms Lozares on many occasions.

Nevertheless, she said that Ms Lozares "had not given a clear and consistent account” of the facts related to the charge that Tan was acquitted of.

And as there was also no objective evidence to corroborate with what Ms Lozares said, the judge said she had to grant a discharge amounting to an acquittal on that charge.

Anyone found guilty of voluntarily causing hurt can be punished with a jail term of up to three years, or fined up to S$5,000, or both.

In cases where the offences involve a domestic worker, the court may sentence the accused to one-and-a-half times the amount of punishment to which he or she would otherwise have been liable for that offence.