William Teng Guan How pleaded guilty on April 7, 2025, to one drink driving charge and one for performing a rash act endangering human life. - Photos: Court Document, ST file
SINGAPORE: A man who drove his car into a country club’s swimming pool twice in the span of eight minutes has been sentenced to six weeks’ jail.
He will also be disqualified from holding all classes of driving licences for 36 months.
The sentencing came two days after William Teng Guan How, 63, pleaded guilty on Monday (April 7) to one drink-driving charge and one of performing a rash act endangering human life.
On April 9, District Judge Koo Zhi Xuan said Teng had clearly crossed the threshold for a custodial sentence.
“He was intoxicated well above the legal limit and clearly unfit to drive the car. He drove into an area where vehicles were not permitted to be driven into and spent eight minutes driving around haphazardly,” said the judge.
He pointed out that Teng was not even sober enough to be aware of the damage he had caused from the time he got into the car until he ended up in the swimming pool.
“He had caused substantial property damage. The extent of property damage caused is a good proxy to the damage he could have caused to human life,” said the judge.
Teng had admitted he drank two shots of whiskey at a corporate dinner held at Seletar Country Club on Aug 27, 2024.
He then decided to drive himself home but got lost inside the country club’s compound after taking a wrong turn.
Instead of turning out of the country club, he drove through the playground and into the swimming pool.
Footage played in court showed how Teng had driven his vehicle into the club’s pool, then reversed out, before finally driving the front half of his car into the pool again.
In the process, he ran over plants, dislodged a water pipe, dented the side of a metal shed, hit garden lights, and damaged tiles, drain covers and a railing in the swimming pool, causing about $18,000 in damage.
After he was arrested, he was tested and found to have 63 micrograms (mcg) of alcohol in 100ml of breath – nearly double the legal limit of 35 mcg of alcohol in 100ml of breath.
The court heard that Teng had multiple compounded traffic offences between 2016 and 2017, including speeding, driving across a road divider and failing to conform to a red light stop.
The number of people killed and injured in traffic accidents in Singapore hit a five-year high in 2024.
Annual statistics by the Traffic Police show 142 people died in accidents in 2024, up from 136 in the previous year. The number of people injured in accidents was also up, from 8,941 in 2023 to 9,302 in 2024.
More people were caught drink driving, with 1,778 such arrests in 2024, up 6.9 per cent from 2023.
Drink driving-related accidents dropped from 180 cases to 166 in the same period, but the number of fatal accidents linked to drink driving increased from 11 cases in 2023 to 12 in 2024.
For drink driving, a first-time offender can be jailed for up to a year and fined up to $10,000. A repeat offender can be jailed for up to two years and fined up to $20,000. - The Straits Times/ANN
