Ex-civil defence chief Peter Lim granted early release from 6-month jail term

The 53-year-old former civil defence chief  started serving his jail sentence in June but he was placed on home detention from Sept 27, during which he had to wear an electronic monitoring tag and leave home only between noon and 3pm. 

Get the full story from The Straits Times.

Ex-SCDF chief Peter Lim on home detention

Oct 6, 2013

SINGAPORE - Former civil defence force chief Peter Lim Sin Pang was found guilty of corruption by a district court yesterday in his sex-for-contracts trial.

In a scathing judgment, District Judge Hamidah Ibrahim said the 52-year-old had lied and embellished his account of what had happened. He was also evasive throughout the trial and changed his positions too often.

"I did not find him a credible witness nor a witness of truth," she said.

One example was the way Lim had flip-flopped on what led to his tryst with Ms Angie Pang Chor Mui, said the judge.

Lim was charged with corruptly obtaining oral sex on May 2, 2010, from Ms Pang, a general manager with Nimrod Engineering. In exchange, he tipped Ms Pang off about a Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) tender for radiation portal monitors about 10 months later. Nimrod put in a bid for the project shortly after.

Judge Hamidah said that, initially, Lim had said the sex was a result of a friendship that had taken on a flirty tone.

But as the trial progressed, he changed his story - saying that Ms Pang forced herself on him and that he caved in out of pity.

Former SCDF chief Peter Lim dismissed from public service

Aug 31, 2013

In July, former civil defence chief Peter Lim Sin Pang asked his lawyers to drop the appeal against his six-month jail sentence for corruption.

This came after the 53-year-old met his legal team in prison.

"He wants to close this chapter and move on," lawyer Hamidul Haq told The Straits Times.

He added that Lim hopes to start life afresh after completing his jail term.

The former Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) commissioner was convicted in May of corruptly obtaining sex from a 49-year-old woman whose engineering company had later bid for a contract from his agency.

He also pleaded guilty to seven more corruption charges over trysts with two other women in their 40s. Both were working for companies that sold technology to SCDF.

During Lim's sentencing, District Judge Hamidah Ibrahim said that the court wanted to send a clear message that corruption would not be tolerated.