Court removes gag order on identity of man who killed daughter
SINGAPORE — The High Court on Monday (16 November) allowed the identity of a man who was jailed six years in July for killing his two-year-old daughter to be publicly revealed.
According to local broadsheet The Straits Times, the gag orders imposed on the identities of Johnboy John Teo, now 36, and his child Ashley Clare Teo had been wrongly imposed by a magistrate.
The prosecution reportedly sought the removal of the gag order, stating that justice must seen to be done and that there was no public interest in suppressing the victim’s identity.
Teo was charged on 18 June last year with murder. At the time, his name and Ashley’s were published by the local media.
In June this year, the charge was reduced to culpable homicide. A magistrate later allowed a prosecuting officer’s application for both their names to be gagged.
About the case
Teo and his wife started divorce proceedings in November 2018. Interim judgment was granted on 12 June last year and the divorce was finalised four months later, after four years of marriage.
At the time of the offence, he was suffering from major depressive disorder.
The couple lived separately with Teo visiting his child on alternate weekends. She was supposed to spend 15 to 16 June last year with him.
After fetching Ashley from a parent-teacher meeting at her preschool on 15 June, Teo saw another man he believed to be his wife’s boyfriend waiting for her by a car.
Teo then spent the weekend with his daughter and wondered about the man he saw. He ruminated on his lack of visiting privileges and custody over his daughter, and was worried about the prospect of losing her.
On 16 June, feeling agitated, Teo grabbed two knives from the kitchen, sat next to Ashley, who was asleep in bed at the time, and slit his neck.
Teo placed a pillow over Ashley’s face and smothered her. He then stabbed himself in the neck twice.
Teo’s wife visited his flat after he failed to turn up with Ashley at 9pm. As he was unresponsive to phone calls, she called the police.
A locksmith later prised open the door. Police officers found Ashley lying motionless on the bed and Teo lying unconscious in a pool of blood.
Besides depression, Teo was also found to be suffering from delusional disorder around the end of 2017.
In sentencing him, then-Judicial Commissioner Dedar Singh Gill noted that there was no planning or premeditation involved in Teo’s crime. “The mind of the accused will be imprisoned for the rest of his life with the knowledge that he was responsible for the death of his daughter,” said the judge.
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