[SINGAPORE] The former vice-president of the Law Society of Singapore, under fire for his comments about a rape survivor, is a supercar enthusiast who once drove his Lamborghini to meetings with clients.
Chia Boon Teck, the co-managing director at Chia Wong Chambers, was the president of ExotiCars Club from 2009, according to a 2023 entry on the law firm’s website.
As president of the supercar club, he oversaw the calendar of events, including six major annual and monthly events, he told business-lifestyle media publication The Peak in 2016.
The veteran criminal lawyer wore many hats before he was elected vice-president of the Law Society in August 2023.
According to his now deleted LinkedIn profile, he was a commando, an investigator with the Criminal Investigation Department, and a Singapore Airlines cabin crew member before settling down as a lawyer.
Chia also actively participated in grassroots activities, the law firm’s website showed.
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He was the chairman of the Riverina Residents’ Network and a member of the Pasir Ris West Citizens’ Consultative Committee between 2021 and 2023.
He was also the chairman of the Fengshan Tanah Merah Neighbourhood Committee between 2004 and 2006.
Chia, who covers both criminal and civil matters, was admitted to the Bar in 1995. He handled a number of notable cases, including a civil matter that he took on pro bono.
In the case, he helped a couple secure a settlement after their 12-year-old daughter was flung to her death by the family’s 16-year-old Indonesian maid in 2010.
The victim’s parents had sued the maid agency to hold it responsible for supplying an underage maid.
As part of the settlement, they received an apology from the sole proprietor and a consultant from the maid agency. The court also ordered the defendants to pay the couple S$50,000.
The maid was found guilty of culpable homicide and sentenced to 20 years’ jail.
Chia made the news in 2015 when he and several others made police reports against Amos Yee over comments that the then teenager had made about Christianity and founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew.
Yee, then 17, was subsequently arrested and charged in court with offences including utterances against Christians with a “deliberate intent to wound religious feelings”.
Not one to shy away from controversy, Chia had regularly posted his observations about criminal cases on his LinkedIn account. They included comments about sexual assaults.
But a post on Mar 22 led to accusations of “victim shaming”.
It was over comments Chia made about the victim of convicted rapist Lev Panfilov, a TikToker, scriptwriter and actor with a local YouTube channel.
In his post on LinkedIn, the lawyer described the 30-year-old victim as “not exactly a babe in the woods” and commented, “Wow. Was she awake during this marathon?”, in reference to the sexual assault she was subjected to.
Panfilov was convicted on Mar 21 of two counts of rape, one count of sexual assault by penetration, and one count of outrage of modesty.
Chia subsequently deleted the post, but it had been shared widely by then.
It led to calls for him to resign as vice-president and council member of the Law Society, which carries out functions that include maintaining and improving the standards of conduct and learning of the legal profession in Singapore.
On Tuesday (Mar 25), Chia resigned from the Law Society after its president described his comments as unacceptable. THE STRAITS TIMES
