Former Mediacorp artiste Shane Pow jailed for 5 weeks for drink driving

SINGAPORE – Former Mediacorp artiste Shane Pow Xun Ping, 30, was sentenced to five weeks’ jail on Wednesday (July 14) after he pleaded guilty to a drink-driving charge.

He was also fined $6,000 and disqualified from driving for five years.

This was his second conviction for the offence.

He was earlier fined and disqualified from driving in 2014 after he was convicted of a similar offence.

Repeat drink drivers can be jailed for up two years and fined up to $20,000.

First-time offenders, however, can be jailed for up to a year and fined up to $10,000.

Pow committed his latest drink-driving offence at around 11.20pm on Sept 17 last year.

He had 49 micrograms of alcohol in 100ml of breath while driving a van along Java Road towards Nicoll Highway that evening.

The prescribed limit is 35mcg of alcohol in 100ml of breath.

Besides this case, Pow had also been in the spotlight in recent months, as he was one of the 12 guests in an unlawful gathering at veteran actor Terence Cao Guohui’s home amid the Covid-19 outbreak last October.

Cao, 53, had hosted the event at his condominium unit in Daisy Road, off Braddell Road, to celebrate his birthday, as well as that of Pow and another artiste, Jeffrey Xu Mingjie, 32.

Cao was fined $3,500 on May 25 after he pleaded guilty to an offence under the Covid-19 (Temporary Measures) Act.

One of the guests, former magazine editor Lance Lim Chee Keong, 50, who had invited four people to the gathering, was fined $3,000 on May 18 for an offence under the same Act.

Pow and the 10 other guests had earlier been fined $300 in lieu of being prosecuted due to their lower level of culpability.

Six of them were artistes Julie Tan Shaoyin, 29; Sonia Nicola Chew, 30; Dawn Yeoh Yishan, 34; Jeremy Chan Ming Yuew, 39; Heng Tee Kok, 45; and Xu.

The four other guests were managers Tan Jun Chuan, 30, Debbie Lu Shuyi, 33, and Eleanor Wang Chunwei, 34, as well as part-time model Valnice Yek Jia Hui, 22.

The event received flak on social media after pictures of the unmasked group went viral online.

The celebrities have since apologised via Mediacorp, saying they “deeply regret” their actions.

Mediacorp terminated Pow’s contract following these incidents.