SINGAPORE - The husband of a woman currently facing trial for abusing two domestic helpers under her employment has been sentenced to five weeks' jail and an $8,000 fine for illegally employing one of the helpers.
Sim Guan Huat on Tuesday (May 25) pleaded guilty to three charges under the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act. Two other charges were taken into consideration during his sentencing.
The 59-year-old's wife, Tan Lee Hoon, currently faces eight counts of voluntarily causing hurt to the Filipino nationals.
The court heard that the breaches were discovered when an employment inspector of the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) carried out investigations in October 2018 after receiving some information.
MOM prosecutor Gregory Gan said that Sim had conspired with a friend, Tan Chong Choon, to obtain a work permit for Ms Joan Lozares Lizardo, 33, in 2015 as Sim and his family had been debarred from applying for work permits for domestic workers.
Court documents do not state why the family was debarred at the time.
Tan Chong Choon, who was sentenced to jail and a fine in December last year for his involvement in the crimes, agreed to help Sim as they were friends. Sim often frequented the bar Tan Chong Choon worked at, said the prosecution.
He provided photocopies of his family members' identification cards to Sim.
Sim later told Tan Chong Choon to go to an employment agency at Katong Shopping Centre to sign documents to apply for a foreign domestic worker.
The application was submitted to the MOM in October 2015 for Ms Lizardo to be employed as a foreign domestic worker at Tan Chong Choon's residence instead of Sim's Sentosa Cove residence.
Investigations revealed that from October 2015 to December 2016, Sim had employed Ms Lizardo as a foreign domestic worker at his residence without a valid work permit.
About a month into her job, Sim sent Ms Lizardo to Tan Chong Choon's home to familiarise herself with the place, should the authorities come knocking.
In December 2016, Sim later applied successfully to transfer Ms Lizardo's work permit to his name.
During the investigations in March 2019, Sim was shown a photo of Tan Chong Choon but he lied to an MOM inspector by saying that he could not recall meeting the man. In July that year, he confessed that he had lied "because he did not want to get (Tan Chong Choon) into trouble for helping him as a friend", said the MOM prosecutor.
Sim's wife is facing charges involving Ms Lizardo and another domestic worker - Ms Jenefer Vegafria Arangote, 39.
She allegedly pinched Ms Arangote in the stomach, arm, thigh and chest on various occasions in September 2018 in her home. She is also said to have kicked Ms Lizardo in the chest and hit her head in October 2018, and also struck her torso with a stick in another instance that year.
For employing a foreign worker as a domestic employee without a valid work pass Sim could have been fined between $5,000 and $30,000, jailed for up to 12 months, or both.
For each charge of providing false statement to the employment inspector and the Controller of Work Passes on the work permit application, Sim could have been fined up to $20,000 or jailed for up to two years, or both.
