Recalcitrant 'badge lady' Phoon Chiu Yoke charged yet again with breaching face mask rule before restrictions eased in August
SINGAPORE — A woman accused of failing to wear a face mask in public has been slapped with yet another charge on Friday (Oct 10) for committing the same offence, despite having been jailed in the past for refusing to don the mask.
According to court documents, Phoon Chiu Yoke, 55, is accused of walking within the ION Orchard shopping mall on Aug 16 this year without a face mask on for close to 15 minutes from around 11.50am.
Mask-wearing was only made optional in most indoor settings from Aug 29 onwards, less than two weeks after Phoon's latest alleged offence.
This brings the total number of pending charges against Phoon to four — after she was jailed in September last year for breaching the face mask rule and other offences.
Prior to Friday, she was handed two charges of failing to wear a face mask on Sept 7 this year. These two charges were for breaching the face mask rule twice at the Mandarin Gallery mall along Orchard Road on March 6, court documents stated.
She was also given a third charge under the Infectious Diseases Act of failing to attend an investigation hearing convened by the Singapore Tourism Board on March 31.
Phoon has been dubbed the "badge lady" after video footage of her asking a safe distancing ambassador at Marina Bay Sands (MBS) why she had “no badge” went viral in May last year.
Phoon is scheduled to return to court on Oct 14 for a pre-trial conference.
Those convicted of repeatedly flouting Covid-19 laws can be fined up to S$20,000 or jailed up to a year, or both.
PAST OFFENCES
Her most recent charges follow another round of similar offences which she had pleaded guilty to on Sept 6 last year. She was jailed for 16 weeks that day for nine charges for offences including not wearing a mask in public, as well as leaving her hotel room while on a two-week stay-home order.
The court heard that she was unemployed, having retired from the Republic of Singapore Navy in 2002. She last held the rank of major.
Her offences spanned more than a year from May 2020 to June 2021.
She was first issued a S$300 composition fine for failing to wear a mask at Newton Food Centre, having told National Environment Agency officers that she did not know what Covid-19 was. She ultimately did not pay the fine.
On June 2020, she flew to London, England and had to serve a stay-home notice at Marina Bay Sands. However, she repeatedly left her room without a mask on and claimed that she had a right to use the hotel amenities after paying S$2,400 for the stay.
She also did not wear a mask at least three times at St Andrew’s Cathedral near City Hall MRT Station.
She remained unmasked throughout a worship service and told the church’s head estate manager that she did not need one.
At Clarke Quay Central in December 2020, she tried to enter through an office tower but was stopped.
She asked security guards where it was stated that she had to wear a mask and later questioned the authority of safe-distancing ambassadors.
She also said that she was an army commander and once drove a tank, and that they had no right to ask her to wear a mask.
A video of her challenging them went viral, which showed her saying things such as, “Don’t treat me like I don’t know the law… I want you to understand the damage you’re doing to Singapore’s image.”
As for the MBS incident on May 15 last year, she entered the mall without a mask and later challenged a safe-distancing ambassador, asking: “Who are you representing? Where is your badge?”
She then left and went to Toast Box cafe, again without a mask.
A video of this incident later became widely circulated online. It showed her asking the ambassadors: “You have no badge; who are you representing? You are not the police… I say to you, if you have no badge, don’t speak to me. You have no right to say anything.”
On Sept 12 this year, Phoon withdrew an application to leave Singapore to travel to China after the court found that she was unable to furnish details of her travel itinerary.
The prosecution at the time had also objected to Phoon's request then because they viewed her as a flight risk.
