Three women found guilty of covering up sexual assault of 2-year-old in pre-school

School's vice-principal acted on orders from executive director to delete CCTV footage

- Claudia Tan

Three women who were senior management of a preschool have been found guilty of covering up the sexual assault of a two-year-old girl by a cook who worked there.

They cannot be named due to a gag order to protect the identity of the preschooler, who was one of three toddlers molested by Teo Guan Huat, 61. He had molested the victims, then aged one to two, in a nap room over a period of seven months from May to November 2023.

On Dec 19, 2025, one of the women, 61, was convicted of one count of intentionally omitting information on the sexual assault. She was the principal of the preschool at the time.

A 49-year-old woman, then vice-principal of the preschool, was convicted of one count of obstruction of justice for deleting video footage of the assault.

A 59-year-old former executive director admitted to conspiring with the vice-principal to obstruct the course of justice by deleting the footage.

Another woman, 66, was given a stern warning and granted a discharge amounting to an acquittal in July. She had been charged on Feb 21 with intentionally omitting information, along with the three women.

Teo was sentenced to nine years, four months and seven weeks' jail on Nov 10, after pleading guilty to three molestation charges on Oct 27.

His offence against the two-year-old girl was first discovered on Nov 16, 2023, by the vice-principal, who was reviewing the CCTV footage for an unrelated matter. She saw Teo reaching inside the diaper of a two-year-old girl on Nov 9, 2023.

The principal and the executive director were then overseas attending a course on protecting children from abuse. The vice-principal sent the footage to the two women via WhatsApp, and they had a video call to discuss what to do.

The vice-principal, who was supposed to join them overseas for the course, delayed her flight so that she could instruct Teo not to go near the children.