A master in the Chinese martial art of Tai chi, 54-year-old Tung Eng Hwa used his well-honed deflective skills to malicious ends when he put the blame on his student for a fatal traffic accident that he actually caused.
The tai chi master and businessman had done so in fear of heavier repercussions — he wasn’t supposed to be behind the wheel in the first place. He had been banned from driving for 21 months for drink driving five months prior to the accident that killed a pedestrian along Still Road.
Since the revelation in court, Tung was sentenced to five months in jail and received another driving ban (eight years this time) after he admitted to negligently causing the death of 74-year-old Tan Kim Siew. The Straits Times reports that he was also convicted for driving under disqualification and giving false information to the police.
On Nov 24, 2014, Tung had been running late for a tai chi class that he was conducting. After failing to get a cab for half an hour, he decided to drive his Lexus car out, despite his ban.
Murphy’s law however states that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong — and it came true for the sifu. While driving along Still Road at 8.50pm, he failed to keep a proper lookout for the elderly woman who was crossing the road, and collided into her. The impact flung her to the right side of the road, and she later died from multiple injuries at Changi General Hospital.
Fearing jailtime, Tung called his student — 55-year-old Han Chin Kwang — to head down to the accident scene. The tai chi master harnessed his Pushing Hands prowess and persuaded Han to take the blame for the accident, to which the student agreed.
Police who arrived at the scene were informed by Tung that he was simply the front seat passenger, and Han was the one behind the wheel.
It was a week later that Han decided to come clean and confessed to the police. Tung did the same that day, stating that he persuaded Han to give false information to the police.
For lying to the police, Han was fined $4,000. Tung on the other hand will be presumably passing down his tai chi knowledge to his cellmates in jail.
