Woman linked to fatal Tanjong Pagar crash gets S$5,000 fine, 3-year ban for dangerous driving

SINGAPORE: A woman who drove a BMW at high speed shortly before the car was involved in a crash in Tanjong Pagar which killed five in 2021, was fined S$5,000 on Monday (Apr 3) and disqualified from driving for three years.

This was after the Malaysian, Phoo Yi Lin, 26, pleaded guilty in a district court to one count of dangerous driving.

She was one of three individuals who took turns driving the car around a circuit, before the car’s owner, Jonathan Long Junwei, took over the wheel for the final round and brought along with him four passengers. 

Long then lost control of the car, causing it to skid towards a shophouse before rear-ending a pillar at around 5.40am. 

The vehicle was engulfed by flames, killing all five individuals inside.

Long’s girlfriend, Raybe Oh, suffered serious burns when she approached the car in an attempt to rescue him.

A coroner’s court last year ruled the deaths of the five as a traffic-related misadventure.

WHAT HAPPENED

The court heard that Phoo was part of a group who had gathered sometime before midnight on Feb 12, 2021 at Ang Mo Kio where they consumed alcoholic beverages.

At about 3am on Feb 13, 2021, the group went to a restaurant at Tanjong Pagar Road belonging to Mr Park Se Jin, who was part of the group.

Mr Park opened four to five bottles of soju that was shared by all in the group.

At about 5am, conversation about Long’s newly-bought car was brought up, before some members of the group took turns driving the car in a circuit near the restaurant.

The car was driven from Mr Park's restaurant on Tanjong Pagar Road towards Keppel, before making a U-turn at Enggor Street after Amara Hotel to return to Tanjong Pagar Road towards Maxwell.

It then made another U-turn near 37 Tanjong Pagar Road to return to the restaurant.

Before Phoo took the wheel, Mr Park and Eugene Yap Zheng Min had taken turns to drive the car. Yap was one of the passengers who died in the eventual car crash.

Parts of the incident that morning were captured by a closed-circuit television camera and an in-vehicle camera of a taxi parked nearby.

Analysis by the Health Sciences Authority on the CCTV footage indicated that Phoo was driving at an average speed of between 109kmh and 130kmh at one stretch of the circuit.

The analysis on the taxi footage estimated that she was driving between 125kmh and 181kmh at another stretch, the court heard.

The two clips were shown in court on Monday.

The court also heard that the driver of the taxi had felt a strong vibration before Phoo drove past his vehicle.

After Phoo alighted, Long brought four others in the group to drive the car at high speeds, before the vehicle crashed and burned.

Seeking the maximum fine of S$5,000 and a disqualification period of 36 months, Deputy Public Prosecutor Tay Jia En said that while such offences would ordinarily attract a custodial sentence, the prosecution noted that Phoo had pleaded guilty and shown remorse.

Defence counsel Sunil Sudheesan asked for a slightly lower fine of S$4,000 for his client, along with the driving disqualification, citing her remorse and cooperation with the authorities.

Pleading for the court to "give her a chance", Mr Sudheesan added that his client had lost her job and was also impacted by the fatal accident that day as she had lost a number of friends.

Delivering her decision, District Judge Salina Ishak said that she agreed with the prosecution’s submission that there was a high degree of harm in this case. 

While the traffic condition was light, there were still other road users at that point in time. The judge also noted that Phoo had driven at "two to two and half times" the speed limit when the higher range of speed was taken into consideration.

She also noted that all parties had drunk alcohol prior to the incident, but Phoo’s blood alcohol level was not mentioned in court.

For driving dangerously, Phoo could have been jailed for up to 12 months, fined up to S$5,000 or given both punishments.

This story was originally published in TODAY.