S’pore PR Charged for Breaking SHN to Spend Hours in a Car With Wife

Your spouse may be the most important person in your life, but the fact remains that he or she will always be secondary in the eyes of the law…

Or at least where the legendary Stay Home Notice is concerned.

As such, it is instrumental that you comply with the Stay Home Notice at all costs…

Unless you wish to risk the wrath of the authorities, as this Singapore permanent resident found out the hard way earlier today.

S’pore PR Charged for Breaking SHN to Spend Hours in a Car With Wife

According to Channel News Asia, Bai Fan, 38, has been charged after leaving his hotel twice to convene with his wife.

Which wouldn’t exactly have been headline news, had he not been serving his stay-home notice while doing so.

According to the news report, Bai touched down in Singapore from China on 19 Sep 2020 after transiting in Hong Kong.

As per mandatory, the United States citizen had to serve his quarantine period from 19 Sep to 3 Oct 2020 – at Fairmont Singapore hotel.

He was later found to have deserted the premises on two separate occasions to meet his wife.

“On Sep 19, his wife picked him up from the hotel and the couple then spent about an hour and 40 minutes together in the car in the vicinity,” said ICA.

“On Sep 20, his wife again picked him up and they spent about five hours in the car, first in the vicinity and later in a car park nearby.”

On the second occasion, in particular, Bai had only returned after midnight.

Now, we have no idea why they couldn’t wait until the conclusion of the quarantine period, but we speculate that there had been an ongoing Pokemon GO event around the car’s premises.

As for the five hours on the second occasion, there was probably a boss event going on.

Probably.

Alternatively, they could have been just out to jiak prata.

Sentencing

Earlier today (5 March), Bai was charged with two counts of an offence under the Infectious Diseases (COVID 19 – Stay Orders) Regulations 2020.

He is due to return to court on 26 March 2021.

Should he be found guilty, he will be liable to face a prison term of up to six months, a fine of up to S$10,000 or both.

According to the ICA, foreigners are susceptible to further penalties, “including the revoking or shortening of their permits and passes to remain or work in Singapore”.

High-Profile Cases

Suffice to say, Bai Fan wasn’t the first individual to drop his notice for the sake of love.

On 26 February 2021, a British man and his Singaporean wife were sentenced to jail for working together to flout a stay-home notice – in a bid to convene in a hotel room.

Nigel Skea, 52, had arrived in Singapore from London, and was serving a stay-home notice at a hotel when he began conspiring with his significant other.

Apparently, Skea had travelled to propose to her.

For the record, there has also been a multitude of breaches that were not done for love.

A 45-year-old Singapore PR who returned from China recently, for instance, became uncontactable amid his SHN.

ICA officers tried to call him and even went to his house to check, but he had disappeared into thin air.

Days later, he magically rematerialised in Changi Airport, insisting on leaving Singapore.

The man ended up losing his Singapore PR status.

In another scenario, a 35-year-old woman was charged on Wednesday (10 June 2020) for breaching her stay-home orders at a hotel to visit several locations across the country.

As they might say, there’s always a time and place for everything.

And of course, we’ll never forget that infamous bah kut teh incident.

We hope that there’ll be no further breaches.

Feature Image: MaddyZ / Shutterstock.com