Shaffiq Alkhatib

1 week ago | straitstimes.com | Shaffiq Alkhatib

SINGAPORE – A man who stayed in a woman’s flat when he came to Singapore in 2002 ended up molesting her son, then around 12 years old. Former Singaporean John Chin Esau, who is now a New Zealander, went on to outrage the boy’s modesty six more times from 2003 to 2008. He finally stopped targeting the victim around 2009 when the latter told him that he had a girlfriend. On April 15, Chin, 64, was sentenced to four years and nine months’ jail.

1 week ago | straitstimes.com | Shaffiq Alkhatib

SINGAPORE - A director at a law firm, accused of causing grievous hurt to a motorcyclist by driving a car without reasonable consideration for other road users, has been granted a 12-month conditional warning. Responding to queries from The Straits Times on April 11, the Attorney-General’s Chambers said that after carefully considering the facts and circumstances of the matter, the prosecution directed that the conditional warning be given to Mr Chan Wan Hong.

1 week ago | straitstimes.com | Shaffiq Alkhatib

SINGAPORE – A woman who stole a bottle of perfume from a Changi Airport store two years ago was fined $750 on April 11 after she pleaded guilty to a theft charge. Australian Raj Varsha, 35, who stole a bottle of Chanel perfume worth nearly $250 from a store at the airport’s Terminal 1 departure transit area on March 22, 2023, was detained when she returned here on March 31, 2025. Officers from the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority then referred the matter to the police.

1 week ago | straitstimes.com | Shaffiq Alkhatib

SINGAPORE - A pre-school teacher was at work when she saw that one of her colleagues had pushed a table close to a wall to trap a one-year-old girl. When the Chinese national, 29, spotted the toddler moving under the table, she pointed at the child and alerted her Singaporean colleague, 30, who was also a pre-school teacher at the time. Court documents stated that when the girl got to her feet, the older woman shoved the table which hit the torso of the victim, who started crying.

2 weeks ago | straitstimes.com | Shaffiq Alkhatib

SINGAPORE - Suspended policeman Kevin Chelvam has been convicted of four charges linked to one of Singapore’s worst maid abuse cases involving the death of a domestic helper. On April 10, the 46-year-old was the last of three people to be found guilty of abusing Myanmar maid, Ms Piang Ngaih Don, who weighed a mere 24kg when she died in 2016. She had not been given sufficient food for at least 35 days. When she started working for the family on May 28, 2015, she weighed 39kg.