Former pre-school head jailed after deleting evidence in case involving cook who molested toddler

SINGAPORE – A former pre-school principal, who agreed to reformat a CCTV system after a cook was caught on video molesting a two-year-old girl, was sentenced to 10 days’ jail on April 1.

The 62-year-old woman, who was expressionless as she stood in the dock, had pleaded guilty to one count of intentionally omitting information to the police on the sexual assault committed by Teo Guan Huat.

Before handing down the sentence, District Judge Sharmila Sripathy-Shanaz said the former principal was in a position of trust, but failed to honour that trust.

Stressing that the offender had failed to lodge a police report about what Teo had done, the judge added that educators bear an absolute duty to safeguard children under their care.

She also noted it was ironic the woman found out about his actions while she was attending a course on safeguarding children.

The judge said: “(This case) serves as a sobering reminder that child protection cannot be reduced to the mere completion of courses or formal training.”

She also said that due to the former principal’s inaction, a sexual predator could have struck again, adding: “These are precisely the harms that reporting obligations are designed to guard against.”

In November 2025, Teo, then 61, was sentenced to nine years, four months and seven weeks in jail.

The prosecution said it was one of the most horrendous acts of sexual abuse committed in a pre-school.

Teo pleaded guilty to three molestation charges in October 2025. The Malaysian, who was a Singapore permanent resident (PR) at the time of his offences, had molested three girls, aged one to two, while the victims were in a nap room at the facility.

In a statement, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) told The Straits Times it revoked Teo’s PR status on April 1.

An ICA spokesperson said: “(He) will be deported after his incarceration and barred from re-entering Singapore.”

In December 2025, the former principal was one of three women convicted for offences linked to his crimes.

One of them was the vice-principal, then 49, who was sentenced to three months and two weeks’ jail in January. She was convicted of one count of obstruction of justice for deleting video footage of the assault.

The third woman, then 59, was the executive director of the pre-school. In January, she was jailed for four months for conspiring with the vice-principal to obstruct the course of justice by deleting the footage.

There is a gag order on details regarding the women and the pre-school to protect the victims’ identities.

A fourth woman, then 66, was given a stern warning and granted a discharge amounting to an acquittal in July 2025. She cannot be charged again with the same offence.

Teo molested the girls between May and November 2023, during the children’s nap time at the pre-school.

Cover-up

In earlier proceedings, prosecutors said Teo was not supposed to be interacting directly with the children outside the scope of his duties as a cook.

On Nov 16, 2023, the vice-principal was reviewing CCTV footage over an unrelated matter when she saw a clip of Teo molesting one of the girls.

She sent the footage to the executive director, who was then overseas with the principal to attend a course about protecting children from abuse. The trio discussed what to do next over a video call.

The vice-principal, who was supposed to join them overseas, delayed her flight so she could tell Teo to not go near the children.

The three women met again on Nov 21 that year and decided to raise the matter with the chairwoman of the school’s management committee.

In a meeting the next day, the vice-principal showed the CCTV footage and asked the chairwoman if they should make a police report.

The executive director pointed out that the pre-school would be implicated if they did so. The parents and the Early Childhood Development Agency would also have to be informed, and the police would have to interview staff.

She added that the victim was asleep and might not have been affected by Teo’s actions. The executive director also suggested that they settle the matter quietly by asking Teo to resign.

When the chairwoman asked if the victim’s parents should be informed, the executive director said the school had to manage their reactions if they were told.

She said the school’s name would be tarnished and many parents would withdraw their children.

The vice-principal said the impact on the victim and parents would be worse if they reported the offence.

She said that if she were the mother of the victim, she would rather not know about the crime.

On Nov 23, 2023, the chairwoman said she had decided not to report the matter to the police. Instead, she would dismiss Teo and consider the case closed.

A day later, the chairwoman changed her mind and decided to make a police report.

On Nov 26 that year, the principal, vice-principal and executive director printed their resignation letters in school.

The executive director pressured the principal to overwrite or delete footage of Teo’s acts from the CCTV system, and the principal agreed. The vice-principal then reformatted the system’s hard disks.

The chairwoman made a police report on Dec 2, 2023 – 16 days after Teo’s crimes first came to light.

He was arrested on Dec 4.

The CCTV vendor found that all three hard disks had been reformatted, but the police forensic team managed to retrieve the incriminating footage.

On April 1, the former principal’s bail was set at $10,000, and she is expected to begin serving her sentence on April 8.