Man in the soup after eating bak kut teh

A MAN who breached a stay home notice (SHN) and travelled out of his home to eat bak kut teh on March 23 was convicted after pleading guilty to an offence under the Infectious Diseases Act.

Alan Tham Xiang Sheng, 34, is the first person to be convicted of exposing others to the risk of infection by breaching an SHN.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Kenneth Chin urged the court to sentence Tham to at least 10 to 12 weeks’ jail to “reflect the seriousness of the offence” and deter others from committing a similar act.

He will be sentenced on April 23. Tham was one of two people charged last week with breaching their SHN in separate incidents amid the coronavirus outbreak.

The other man – Palanivelu Ramasamy, 48 – was charged with an offence under the Infectious Diseases (Covid-19 Stay Orders) Regulations 2020.

In a joint statement issued earlier, the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) said Tham was served with an SHN after arriving in Singapore from Myanmar on March 23.

As part of his notice, the Singaporean was supposed to stay home at all times from then until April 6.

Despite this, he travelled islandwide between 3.40pm and 10pm on March 23.

According to court documents, he visited several places, including a food court at Terminal 3 of Changi Airport, Peninsula Plaza in North Bridge Road, Kampung Admiralty Hawker Centre, and a FairPrice supermarket in Woodlands Drive 71.

These trips all took place on

March 23.

On March 25, ICA officers visited Tham as part of an enforcement check where he told officers that he did not proceed home immediately after being served the SHN.