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A BUSINESSMAN who caused the death of an elderly pedestrian in a hit- and-run accident a year ago was jailed for 12 months and banned from driving for 10 years for causing her death and other traffic offences on Tuesday.
Charles Lee Cheow Loong pleaded guilty last month to causing the death of Madam Pang Hong Koon, 79, by doing a rash act along Eu Tong Sen Street on Nov 16 last year and four other charges.
The 30-year-old undischarged bankrupt was driving less than two months after he had been banned from holding or obtaining a licence for 18 months in September last year.
He was travelling at a speed of between 69 and 78kmh above the 50kmh-speed limit when his car hit Madam Pang at a signalised pedestrian crossing. He had also failed to render assistance to the victim, moved his BMW car without police permission, and drove without insurance coverage.
A sixth charge of failing to stop was taken into consideration.
The court heard that he was on his way home at about 6.40am after spending the whole night at his pub and Ministry of Sound at Clarke Quay when the accident happened.
After the accident, he stopped the car some distance away and on seeing Madam Pang lying motionless, drove off and parked his car in the basement carpark of Balestier Towers at Balestier Road.
Police managed to track him down after the car's front licence plate was found at the scene.
His lawyer, Mr Alan Moh, said Lee's girlfriend was supposed to fetch him and his mother but could not do so. So he drove to pick up his mother for a hospital appointment that morning.
Lee had left the scene as he was afraid of being harassed by passsers-by.
Pressing for a stiff sentence, Deputy Public Prosecutor Lim Tse Haw told District Judge Roy Neighbour that Lee showed reckless disregard for the personal safety of other road users and callous disregard for the victim. What was worse, he was driving under disqualification after spending the entire night at two different pubs without any sleep.
DPP Lim said fatal hit-and-run cases had increased from four in 2004 to seven last year, and up to October this year, there were seven cases.
'For fatal hit-and-run cases, every case is one case too many as precious life is lost,'' he added.
One of Madam Pang's sons who was in court, Mr Loh Ngiap Yong, 56, a cook, said the driver should have got out of his car to help his mother as Singapore is a law-abiding country and no one would hit him.
Whatever sentence given would not bring their mother back, he added.
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