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Top vet charged
HE HAS made the news several times for his use of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) on animals.
His unusual method was even featured on an Animal Planet programme.
But veterinarian Oh Soon Hock, 52, who once headed the Singapore Zoo's veterinary department, is now making headlines for the wrong reasons.
He was charged in court yesterday with four counts of outrage of modesty.
Oh allegedly molested a former zoo colleague last year.
The offences allegedly took place between January and March 27 last year at the Singapore Zoological Gardens at Mandai Road, where Oh was a senior veterinarian.
A media statement issued by Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS) yesterday said that Oh resigned last April.
It is not known if Oh left because of the alleged incidents.
WRS added that the victim, a 21-year-old woman, also quit late last year.
According to court documents, the vet had allegedly squeezed the woman's breasts and kissed her on her lips on two occasions.
Married with two children, Oh had been featured in the news several times for his work with the Singapore Zoo.
He told The New Paper in a 1996 interview that he was such an animal lover that he seldom ate meat.
He studied veterinary science in Taiwan in 1981, hoping to learn more about animals so as to continue the family business of rearing pigs.
It was there that he first learnt about TCM for animals, after taking a course on animal acupuncture.
After graduating in 1986, he helped out in his father's Punggol pig farm.
He treated Ah Meng
He joined the Singapore Zoo in 1990 after the business of pig farms was phased out.
Oh later took a TCM course at the Singapore Chung Hwa Medical Institution.
After graduating in 1994, with the blessings of the zoo management, he began to use his own blend of TCM and veterinary science to treat animals that were not responding to modern medicine.
Among the animals treated by him was the zoo's most famous icon, Ah Meng the orang utan, who died in 2008.
About five or six years ago, the then-46-year-old primate was suffering from piles and constipation for almost six months despite Western treatment.
Oh treated her with a concoction of 10 herbs ground into a powder and she got better within a week.
In the same year, Oh was filmed by the late Australian star of Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin, who was hosting New Breed Vets, a series that featured unusual and cutting-edge veterinary techniques.
Oh was the star as Irwin and a group of journalists watched him perform acupuncture on an 18-year-old Asian elephant that was suffering from chronic lameness in its leg after being injured by another elephant.
The once-famous vet also successfully treated horses for sinus problems, sea lions for eye irritation and civet cats for chronic diarrhoea.
He also performed acupuncture on an eight-year-old male Komodo dragon in 2003.
But Oh did not use his TCM expertise on only animals.
At one point, he was giving free consultations and weekly lectures on pharmacology at the Chung Hwa clinic.
For each charge of outrage of modesty, Oh faces up to two years' jail with a fine and caning.
Teacher Charged
HE ALLEGEDLY had sex with a 15-year-old student twice.
In court yesterday morning, the 25-year-old teacher was slapped with two charges of having sex with a person below the age of 16.
Following amendments to the Penal Code in February 2008, it is an offence for anyone to have sex with a person under 16.
The incidents, which were consensual, allegedly took place on May 20 and sometime in June at a flat in the northern part of Singapore.
The teacher, who is represented by lawyer Shashi Nathan, cannot be named to protect the identity of the girl.
Suspended
The New Paper understands that he has since been suspended from teaching.
Out on police bail, he is expected to turn up in court next month for a pre-trial conference.
It is not known which school he taught in.
And whether the teen was one of his students.
If convicted, he faces up to 10 years' jail and a fine for each charge.
There have been at least three recent cases of teachers who got into trouble with the law for having sex with their students or minors.
-In July, a private tutor, 38, was jailed for six years and given six strokes of the cane after pleading guilty to two charges of sexually penetrating a minor.
Three other similar charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.
It was reported that the nine-year-old boy performed oral sex on the tutor five times between February and March 2008.
The incidents took place in the toilet of the boy's grandparents' home.
The boy was found by a psychiatrist to display hyper-sexualised behaviour.
The judge also found that the boy was the one who initiated the acts.
- In February last year, a 32-year-old former school teacher was jailed for 10 months for having sex with a 15-year-old student at a Pasir Ris chalet.
She became Singapore's first woman to be jailed for having sex with an underage boy.
The married mother of two had sex with the boy six times, either at her home or at the chalet, before she decided to end the relationship.
The incidents came to light when she confided in her school counsellor after the boy threatened to harm her and her family.
- In August 2008, a 38-year-old private tutor was sentenced to a year's jail for having sex with a 15-year-old student four times during a five-month relationship in 2007.
The married father of one had been tutoring the girl since she was in Primary 5.
This article was first published in The New Paper.
