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SINGAPORE: A 35-year-old woman who violated her notice to stay home to meet friends under the pretext of visiting a doctor for a rash was sentenced to 12 weeks in jail on Wednesday (September 16).
Rameswari Devi Jairaj Singh was charged with one count of failing to comply with her stay-at-home notice when leaving the hotel and spending more than a week away.
Rameswari first arrived in Singapore on April 30. Having entered from Johor Bahru, Rameswari was asked to complete and submit an online health declaration form at Woodlands Checkpoint.
He stated that his place of accommodation was the Ibis Singapore Novena hotel on Irrawaddy Road and he was issued a stay-at-home notice for the period from April 30 to May 14, Deputy Prosecutor Timotheus Koh said.
An officer from the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) had explained to Rameswari the requirements of the stay-at-home notice and told him that he was not allowed to leave his hotel room for the duration of his notice. He was also shown a copy of the notice, Mr. Koh said.
Rameswari understood the requirements of the stay-at-home notice and was taken to the hotel on a bus provided by the ICA after immigration approval, the prosecutor added.
Investigations showed that Rameswari left the Ibis hotel on May 4 under the pretext of seeing a doctor for a rash.
“She took a Grab car to go to Toa Payoh but did not visit a doctor. Instead, she wandered around the Toa Payoh area looking for friends,” Koh said.
Then Rameswari took a Grab Car to the Redhill MRT station. By then, it was the night of May 5.
Koh said that Rameswari later met a friend and spent the night at their home.
On the morning of May 6, Rameswari left his unit and traveled to Siglap in search of friends. There, she traveled to Tiong Bahru where she stayed at Tiong Bahru Park from May 6 to 12.
Rameswari did not return to the hotel until May 12. She did not visit a doctor during the time she was away, Koh said.
THE NON-COMPLIANCE IN THIS CASE IS “SERIOUS”
Koh said that a sentence of at least four months in prison is appropriate, adding that the violation in this case is severe, lasting “unusually long” and “spanning more than a week (nine days).”
“This is more than half the defendant’s period of isolation (nine out of 14 days). To compound matters, she traveled extensively in Singapore while in rape,” he said.
He added that Rameswari’s guilt in this case was also high, as he knew well what the stay-at-home notice requirements were, but “deliberately ignored them.”
There was also an element of deception in the case, Mr. Koh said.
Rameswari had told the hotel staff that he wanted to leave the hotel to see a doctor for a rash, but he did not see a doctor when he took a car to Toa Payoh.
She did not refute this, but alleged as an attenuation that she “did not intend to leave the clinic without seeing the doctor” but was overwhelmed with emotions and felt she “had no other choice,” she said.
Mr. Koh added that the claim was unfounded and should not be accepted.
“If in fact your heat rash was as severe as claimed, your decision not to see a doctor but to go find friends is puzzling and indicative that you didn’t really intend to see a doctor in the first place.
“In this regard, it is worth emphasizing that at no point in her nine-day move through Singapore did she see a doctor for this alleged rash,” he said.
The prosecutor also compared Rameswari’s case to an earlier case involving a stay-at-home notice violation that spanned several days.
He said the current gap was much longer. It had involved more localities and had a “frivolous purpose” rather than a job in the previous case, as well as the “aforementioned defendant deception.”
For violating her stay-at-home notice, Rameswari could have been fined up to S $ 10,000, imprisoned for up to six months or both.
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