Warning: This article contains distressing details of severe physical abuse.
SINGAPORE: A 66-year-old man who was among three people who fatally abused a 19-year-old woman who was starved, beaten and chained in a toilet in a Clementi flat was sentenced to 14 years and 11 months’ jail on Monday (May 25).
Lim Peng Tiong admitted to his role in months of abuse that led to Huang Baoying’s death in May 2021. She had lost about 43 per cent of her body weight and died from severe malnutrition and blunt force trauma.
The cases of the two co-accused – her 34-year-old brother Huang Bocan and 46-year-old Chee Mei Wan – are pending before the courts.
When Lim pleaded guilty in February to one count of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, the prosecution urged the court to impose 20 years’ jail, while his lawyers argued for 11 years in prison.
Explaining his decision, Justice Pang Khang Chau imposed an initial sentence of 14 years and five months in prison, with an additional six months in lieu of caning, since Lim is above 50 years old and cannot be caned.
The prosecution had submitted that the case fell within the category of the worst type of culpable homicide, but the judge disagreed, noting that Lim’s involvement was the least of the three.
His sentence would depend on his own conduct and culpability, Judge Pang said on Monday.
Adding that the prosecution tried to “shoehorn” Lim’s case into this particular category, the judge said they only considered the totality of all the acts committed, without paying attention to Lim’s individual acts.
For example, they submitted that Lim abused his close relationship with the victim. But the victim was the biological sister of the co-accused, and there was no familial relationship between Lim and the girl, the judge noted.
It would be wrong to punish Lim accordingly because of her totally different relationship with her brother, Judge Pang added.
While he agreed that the facts of the case were very egregious, the judge said he did not think Lim’s conduct met the standard for the sentence the prosecution asked for.Â
HOW THEY MET
Lim, who is unmarried and without children, met the victim in 2018 through Chee Mei Wan’s company, which marketed and sold nutritional products.
The Huang siblings and Lim joined the company – which Chee called a club – as members.Â
The victim, then aged between 16 and 17, wanted to lose weight, improve herself and earn money, the court heard. The group grew close after spending time together.
The girl’s older brother and Chee, who was married, began a romantic relationship in September 2018.
After the club’s storefront in Clementi closed in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, the group began meeting at the siblings’ home so that Bocan could teach Chee how to use social media platforms and Zoom to promote her products.Â
The siblings fell out with their father over their expenses on the company’s products, and eventually moved into Lim’s home in July 2020. Chee joined them after a dispute with her husband.
In October that year, Chee devised a fine system for Lim’s bad habits, such as dragging his feet when he walked, which affected his marketing and sale of products.
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