SINGAPORE: A 66-year-old man who was among three people who brutally starved and abused a 19-year-old woman in a toilet over several months until she died was sentenced to 14 years and 11 months’ jail on Monday (May 25).
The prolonged abuse or “punishment” of Huang Baoying, including brutal beatings and confinement in the toilet of a Clementi flat, led to her death on May 5, 2021. She had lost 43 per cent of her body weight by the time she died from excessive blunt force trauma and severe malnourishment.
Lim Peng Tiong pleaded guilty to one count of culpable homicide not amounting to murder in February. The cases of the other two members of the group, the victim’s 34-year-old elder brother Huang Bocan and 46-year-old Chee Mei Wan, are still pending before the courts.
When Lim’s guilty plea was heard in February, the prosecution urged the court to impose 20 years’ jail, while his lawyers argued for 11 years’ jail.
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 arrested for Huang Baoying’s death.
His sentence would depend on his own conduct and culpability, said Judge Pang in court 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 another co-accused, and there was no familiar 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.
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 all joined the company – which Chee called a club – as members. Chee herself was a coach in the company.
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 had a husband, 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.
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 own 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.
The fines ranged from 50 cents to a few dollars, and Lim agreed to the system. But Bocan and his sister were soon also subject to it to correct their habits.
After a month, Chee and Bocan thought the fines were ineffective and introduced physical punishments, including exercise and beatings. Baoying was punished the most, made to perform squats for up to six hours at a time.
In February 2021, the trio created a WhatsApp chat group to monitor and report Baoying’s “mistakes”.
ESCALATING ABUSE
Eventually, the punishment meted out to Baoying escalated to “full-blown torture and abuse”, the prosecution charged.
The trio restricted Baoying’s food intake, forced her out of the flat on some occasions and confined her in the toilet to “reflect on her mistakes”.
Bocan took control of Baoying’s money and gave her only S$20 to S$30 a week for one meal a day, which was supposed to be what court documents described as “mixed vegetable rice”. This was purportedly to teach her about hunger and to be grateful for her food.
To punish Baoying for eating food other than “mixed vegetable rice”, Chee suggested confining her in a toilet.
From February to May 2021, Chee and Bocan began confining her in the toilet for prolonged periods, including nearly the whole of March 2021.
She slept and ate in the toilet, and her brother told her to sleep sitting up. After realising that Baoying was leaving the toilet to look for food, Chee instructed Lim to buy a chain and a padlock.
She was then chained to a railing in the toilet. Since she could escape the restraints, Bocan secured the chain more tightly and chained her ankle instead of her wrist after realising the chain hurt her.
In February 2021, the trio also began beating Baoying with a wooden stick up to 240 times at once, targeting areas such as the back of her calves and thighs. One of these beatings resulted in a wound on the back of her right calf, which never healed.
Chee taught the two men to beat Baoying “properly” by demonstrating on them first to gauge the extent of force they could use.
Baoying would then be beaten when deemed to have misbehaved, including on one occasion when she accepted a blanket and a straw mat from a stranger after being chased out of the flat, for “behaving like a beggar”.
On another occasion in April 2021, Baoying fell asleep during a church service, which Bocan and Chee also attended. At the flat, Bocan slapped her in the face about 80 times, and Lim slapped her around 50 times.
DAY BEFORE DEATH
By March 2021, Baoying was weak due to food deprivation and repeated beatings. But she was still forced to perform hand raises and squats – Lim knew about the punishment and supported it, the prosecution said.
The day before she died, Baoying failed to do squats as instructed and was punished for lying about it.
Chee, followed by Bocan, beat her in the living room with the wooden stick, but Baoying remained silent. Bocan and Chee saw her silence as defiance, and Chee told the teen that crying would be a sign of remorse.
Baoying remained quiet, prompting the pair to poke her. Chee asked Lim to splash cold water on the victim, and Bocan later held the girl’s head under water for a few seconds.
By then, Baoying could no longer support herself in a sitting position.
Chee asked Lim to fetch some rope to tie Baoying’s hands together and force her to sit upright.
Bocan stood on Baoying’s thighs to try to make her cry. Lim later took over the position, but Baoying remained silent.
Bocan then fetched salt from the kitchen and passed it to Chee, who poured it on the victim’s open wound to provoke a reaction.
At about 11pm, Chee told the two men to bring Baoying to the toilet. With her hands tied above her head, Baoying was left beneath a running tap and drenched with water, causing her to struggle.
She was left in this position for 15 minutes before she was untied. Bocan then changed his sister’s clothes before leaving her on a mattress.
In the wee hours of May 5, 2021, Bocan found that his sister had become unresponsive. Bocan suggested sending her to hospital, but Chee objected as she did not want the authorities involved.
They left the unresponsive girl alone until about 5am, when they again discussed sending her to the hospital.
They agreed to lie about how the incident arose, including claiming that Chee had not stayed at Lim’s flat. Bocan also deleted photos and videos of his sister’s wounds, as well as audio recordings that would implicate them.
Bocan called 995 at about 6.02am and was told to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation on his sister. Paramedics found him doing so when they arrived at about 6.12am.
Resuscitation efforts failed and Baoying was pronounced dead minutes later. Noticing her injuries, the paramedics reported the case to the police.
According to an autopsy report, Baoying died from severe malnutrition with sepsis and excessive blunt force trauma. Apart from extensive bruising, she had a large, chronic, infected abscess on her right leg.
She weighed only 27.6kg at the time of her death, down from 48.8kg before she moved into Lim’s home.
Lim was arrested on May 11, 2021. He was assessed to have no mental illness and was not of unsound mind.
He was represented by lawyers Ms Kate Loo and Ms Grace Martin, with Mr Sunil Sudheesan and Ms Joyce Khoo as consultant lawyers.
Laying out Lim’s mitigation arguments when the case was last heard in February, Ms Kate Loo said Lim had been brainwashed by Chee into believing that the acts were for Baoying’s benefit.
He was subjected to a similar punishment regime and was not the main driver of the abuse, she claimed.
“The tragic incident took place within a group hierarchy in which the group’s leader, Chee Mei Wan, and Mei Wan’s boyfriend, Huang Bocan, exercised decision-making authority over a punishment regime meted out for our client and the deceased. Our client subsequently participated in the punishment regime,” the defence lawyers said.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Timotheus Koh said that Lim should not be allowed to hide behind the excuse of being brainwashed.
While Lim was not the main driver, he had “actively endorsed the abuse, participated in it, and provided the environment for it to go on undetected”, Mr Koh said, adding that Baoying had to endure “horrifying and senseless torture”.
