BALIK PULAU: More than 150 people gathered at the magistrate’s court here yesterday morning to catch a glimpse of Jess Teh and her boyfriend Ong Chee Leong.
There were a couple of false alarms.
At 9.45am, a court policeman shouted “Tanjung, Tanjung” (indicating that the case would be heard in town) and some left the premises to go to the George Town court. Most, however, stayed back and the crowd grew bigger.
At 10.40am, someone shouted “lai liao” (in Hokkien, “they are here”) when they saw a police van but it did not head towards the court.
Five minutes later, a heavily tinted van drove into the court premises and part of the crowd surged after it.
A plainclothes policeman stuck his hand out of the window to gesture that it was
an unrelated case and the crowd laughed at its misplaced excitement when three drug detainees were escorted from the van.
Two housewives from Bukit Kecil, Sungai Pinang, said they woke up early and quickly finished their housework so that they could come and see what the couple looked like and how they behaved.
“We took a sapu van to get here as we don’t know how to drive,” said Wong Ah Lan, 60.
“We are busybodies,” said her neighbour who only gave her name as Yin, 47.
They met a friend, Kok Yin Lan, 56, from Pulau Betong who went there with three other women from her area.
”This is my second time here. I came today because I heard that Ying Ying’s grandparents would be present and I wanted to see what they looked like in person,” she said.
In George Town, Ooi Eng Chew sat alone in a corner outside a magistrate's courtroom, the pain of having lost his little daughter etched on his face.
Ooi, 29, seemed to be in a daze and sat silently with his arms crossed, and only answered watching brief counsel Jagdeep Singh Deo when the latter asked him some questions.
After Teh and her boyfriend Ong, both 28, were brought into the Northam Tower court at 2.41pm, Ooi entered the courtroom and took a seat in the front row of the public gallery.
Throughout the proceedings, he stared blankly ahead and at one point even locked eyes with Ong who had turned back to look at the public gallery.
Jagdeep Singh said Ooi had instructed him to write to the Deputy Public Prosecutor’s office for the return of Ying Ying’s remains so that he could give his daughter a proper funeral.
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SOURCE: The Star Online (Nation)
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