Former Mediacorp artiste Shane Pow intends to admit to drink-driving charge

Shaffiq Alkhatib
The Straits Times
Jun 3, 2021

Former Mediacorp artiste Shane Pow Xun Ping, 30, intends to plead guilty to his drink-driving charge, a district court heard on Thursday (June 3).

He will be back in court on July 14 to admit to the offence.

This will be his second drink-driving conviction. In 2014, he was fined and disqualified from driving after he was convicted of a similar offence.

Details on the fine amount and disqualification period were not revealed in court documents.

Pow could end up behind bars this time as repeat drink drivers can be jailed for up two years and fined up to $20,000.

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

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

He is said to have 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 has also been in the spotlight in recent months, after he was one of 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 last month 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.