Ferrari driver pleads guilty to three separate charges, including drink driving

SINGAPORE: Ferrari driver Shi Ka Yee who pleaded guilty just last month to obstructing Orchard Road with her car two years ago, admitted on Tuesday (Aug 14) to drink driving and two other separate charges.

The drink driving incident occurred on Jan 31, 2017.

Two police officers attending to a 999 call went to the Grand Hyatt hotel in Scotts Road and saw 73-year-old Shi who reeked of alcohol.

Her gait was unsteady and her speech was slurred, court documents said. One of the officers advised Shi not to drive and to take a taxi home instead, but she insisted that she was capable of driving her vehicle.

Despite repeated advice from the officer not to drive, Shi rushed towards her vehicle and drove it out of the driveway before she was stopped by the officer.

The officer conducted a breathalyser test on her, but she was uncooperative for almost 20 minutes.

Eventually, the officer arrested her for failing to provide a breath specimen and took her back to Tanglin Police Station, where a blood alcohol analysis showed that her blood sample had 103 milligrams of alcohol per 100ml of blood, more than the prescribed limit of 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100ml of blood. 

Investigations later revealed that Shi had drunk a glass of wine while having dinner at the Grand Hyatt, before going to a night club at the basement of the hotel and consuming two glasses of gin and tonic.

TWO MORE CHARGES

The two separate charges, from 2015, involved confining a man in a crane bucket and committing a rash act by driving her vehicle until it came into contact with her neighbor.

On Feb 17, 2015, five workers hired by Shi's neighbour, Mr Nasrat Muzayyin, arrived at 13 Astrid Hill with a lorry crane to prune parts of a tree from Shi's property next door.

The tree had branches that encroached onto Mr Nasrat's home, and he had tried asking for the branches to be trimmed since October 2014.

One of the workers, 35-year-old Indian national Mr Ankathi Thirupathi, was given the role of standing in the crane bucket and pruning the encroaching branches with a chainsaw. Another worker controlled the crane from the ground, while the remaining workers cleaned up the fallen branches.

At about 9.30am, Shi arrived in her car and entered her neighbour's house to confront him, using vulgarities on him.

She said: "You cut my tree, my tree is a living thing, I hope your kids die."

Shi then went to the lorry crane, turned off the engine and removed the key while Mr Ankathi was in the elevated crane bucket.

He was stuck there for about an hour before being rescued by officers from the Singapore Civil Defence Force.

SHE DROVE HER CAR UNTIL IT CAME INTO CONTACT WITH NEIGHBOUR

The other workers went to tell Nasrat what happened, and he went to Shi's house to confront her and retrieve the key, saying that he needed it to release Mr Ankathi and would call the police if she did not comply.

Shi refused and used vulgarities on her neighbour, challenging him to call the police.

She then drove her vehicle out with the driver's window partially wound down. Her neighbour stood in front of her car to prevent her from leaving, and to get the key from her.

He asked her to wait for the police to arrive, but Shi refused and drove her car forward until it came into contact with him.

Mr Nasrat moved aside for his own safety and Shi drove off, telling him that she was going out of town to Hong Kong.

Shi's defence lawyer asked for mitigation and sentencing to be adjourned until after this Friday, when Shi will be appealing against her conviction and sentence for voluntarily causing hurt to another motorist.

She will be back in court for these three charges at the end of the month.