At first when I read the heading, I thought it was the usual sham marriage story, a local man marrying a PRC so that she can apply PR........
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Man jailed, fined for sham wedding
SINGAPORE: A 37-year-old married man was jailed a month and fined S$8,000 for offences such as going through a sham ceremony to marry another woman.
Raymond Wee Kian Seng orchestrated the so-called marriage ceremony with Tham Wai Fen. He did so because Ms Tham's father, Tham Mun Poon allegedly pressured him to marry his only daughter.
Wee and Ms Tham first fell in love in 1998 but they broke up after dating for a short period as she wanted to concentrate on her studies.
Wee remained friends with Ms Tham and went on to marry Frances Pang Yoke Khoon in 2004.
Wee started to see Ms Tham more frequently after his marriage became shaky in 2006. She continued to date him even though he hinted to her on many occasions that he was a married man.
He decided to orchestrate the sham marriage ceremony just to please Ms Tham's father.
Wee approached his ex-colleague, Ainagoundan Kattan in December 2008, asking him to solemnise it even though Ainagoundan was not authorised to do so.
Wee lied to him, claiming that his marriage with Madam Pang was on the rocks. He also gave Ainagoundan S$150 for acting as a Justice of Peace to solemnise the ceremony.
Wee prepared a fake marriage certificate by scanning his original one and changing the details to include Ms Tham's particulars.
The ceremony, held at The Pines country club on December 27 2008, was attended by guests including Ms Tham's parents and siblings.
However, sometime later, Ms Tham's father got suspicious about his supposed son-in-law and decided to conduct a search with the Registry of Marriages. It was then he realised the marriage was a sham and notified the Police.
The court heard that Madam Pang has forgiven her husband and is prepared to stay married to him.
For going through with the ceremony, Wee could have been jailed up to seven years and fined.
And for abetting his former colleague to solemnise the marriage, Ainagoundan could have been jailed up to ten years and fined a maximum of 15 thousand dollars.
He has already been charged for conducting an unauthorised solemnisation of marriage.
His pre-trial conference will be held on December 10.
-CNA/ac
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1097114/1/.html
Love is really blind after all!
