SINGAPORE, Feb 26 — They spent months apart and could not wait to be reunited, so Nigel Skea took a flight to Singapore.
The British national was served a two-week stay-home notice at the Ritz-Carlton Millenia Singapore hotel to curb the potential spread of Covid-19. But he soon breached it to meet Agatha Maghesh Eyamalai, his then-fiancee and now wife, who had booked another room in the hotel.
After spending the night together, Skea tried to return to his room but a security officer caught him.
Skea, 52, was today jailed two weeks and fined S$1,000. Eyamalai, 39, will spend a week behind bars.
Skea pleaded guilty earlier this month to flouting a control order and failing to wear a face mask under the Infectious Diseases Act.
District Judge Jasvender Kaur considered four similar charges in sentencing him.
Eyamalai, who lost her job as an administrative assistant because of the court case, pleaded guilty to conspiring with Skea to flout a control order.
District Judge Kaur said that every instance of breaching a stay-home order is a threat to public health, as Covid-19 can be spread by persons with no symptoms.
Even though Skea was not infectious and later tested negative for the coronavirus, the judge said it did not make him any less blameworthy. He chose to breach the stay-home order by sending text messages to Eyamalai the moment he reached the hotel, and Eyamalai had played an active part in arranging to meet him.
While their lawyer SS Dhillon said in mitigation earlier that Skea travelled to Singapore to propose to Eyamalai and they were “overcome with emotion” after a long separation, District Judge Kaur said that disrupted relationships were an inevitable consequence of the pandemic.
“It requires patience and sacrifice on everyone for the greater good,” the judge said.
What happened
On September 20 last year, Skea flew from London to Singapore to meet Eyamalai.
At the time, he worked as a tug master with Scotland-based boat operator Maritime Craft (Clyde).
A Singapore immigration official served a stay-home notice on him, telling him he was not allowed to leave his hotel room and could not have visitors. He acknowledged this.
After arriving at the Ritz-Carlton hotel, Skea sent a text message to Eyamalai to tell her he was there. She then called the hotel to reserve a room on the 27th floor.
At 12.52am the next day, Skea left his room on the 14th floor without a face mask, as he had decided to scout the premises to find a viable route to her room.
When he got to the emergency staircase, he realised that the door could be opened only from his side. He then returned to his room before realising he was locked out.
He called the hotel’s reception counter for help and a staff member helped him unlock the door.
At 2.25am, when Eyamalai arrived at her room, Skea left his room again and kept the door ajar by wedging a piece of cardboard between it and the doorframe.
He climbed the emergency staircase to the 27th floor, where Eyamalai opened the emergency exit door for him. They spent the night in her room till about 11am.
After leaving Eyamalai’s room, he realised he could not access his floor through the emergency staircase, so he walked down to the fourth storey.
When a security officer stopped him, he lied that his room door had accidentally closed behind him while he was collecting food left outside his room.
The officer related the story to the duty manager, who went up to escort Skea back to his room. Skea repeated the same lie about being locked out to the manager while they were in the lift.
The manager, however, noticed his door was unlocked and ajar. His acts were also captured on closed-circuit television cameras on the 14th and 27th floors.
The couple tied the knot in November last year
For each charge of breaching Covid-19 laws, Skea and Eyamalai could have been jailed up to six months or fined up to S$10,000, or both. ― TODAY
