HarveyChettiar001 — Harvey's portrait displayed in the Out In Singapore exhibition:[1].

Vickreman Harvey Chettiar (born 1990) is a psychiatrised, autistic, non-operative trans woman who identifies as a panromantic lesbian. She works as a datacentre and computer system builder and has served as Mensa Singapore's Director of Events and Special Interest Groups[6].

In 2016, Harvey filed a civil suit against the National Healthcare Group (NHG), alleging that she was raped at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH). Her case was first brought to the public's attention by We Who Witness, a non-governmental organisation, in a Facebook post on 14 March 2021[7]. Harvey had her suit dismissed because the NHG's lawyers argued that Harvey did not have the 'mental fitness' to sustain the case in her own name and invoked Section 377A of the Penal Code, which criminalised sex between men, against her.

Harvey filed the suit against the NHG because it owned the Institute of Mental Health. To argue her case entailed an order of costs which required her to pay up to $597,000 in legal costs that the National Healthcare Group had accumulated.

Detained even before she was found guilty and for charges that she was later acquitted of or discharged from, she has still received no justice since the rape and assault that happened to her while she was discriminatorily detained in a male forensic psychiatric ward.

Section 377A of the Penal Code was invoked to strike out her civil suit and she was once again denied her right to equal recognition under the law due to her being psychiatrised, with a diagnosis of 'gender identity disorder'. Justice was repeatedly denied to Harvey due to the intersectional oppression she faced.

In an Instagram post she shared with queer.sg in 2020, Harvey wrote: “In 2014, I was arrested for alleged terrorism-related offences. Normally people are released on bail but as I have Asperger's Syndrome, I was remanded in IMH for 11 days awaiting a psychiatric report. I was detained together with male prisoners because I was assigned male at birth, despite being anatomically intersex and female presenting. That was when I was sexually assaulted by an inmate named Syafik. He has escaped justice for more than 6 years now. 6 whole years. Things had gotten so bad that I spent $5000 on a private investigation to get some closure.”

Harvey then sought a pro bono lawyer to take on her case and argue against the order of costs, which would require her to pay over half a million dollars in legal costs that the NHG had chalked up. This would leave her bankrupt and lacking access to hormones and other basic needs.

Timeline of events[]

2014[]

Harvey is arrested for alleged terrorism-related offences and subjected to discriminatory, disability-based detention to assess her 'soundness of mind' to make her own defence.
She is remanded at the Institute of Mental Health for psychiatric evaluation on the basis of having autism spectrum disorder.
The State does not recognise Harvey as a trans woman; IMH places her in a male forensic ward.
She is placed there alongside people accused of sexual and other violent offences.
Harvey is raped and then repeatedly molested during the detention in the psychiatric ward.
She is severely traumatised and later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
She is acquitted of the original terrorism charge and discharged from three additional charges.
Harvey lodges a police report about the sexual assault.

2016[]

Harvey's police report is closed without investigation.
As other avenues are unavailable, Harvey files a civil suit against the National Healthcare Group, which owns IMH, for negligence and vicarious liability. This is her only route to any kind of justice, as the assailant himself cannot legally be identified and she can neither pursue a criminal case nor file a magistrate's complaint against the perpetrator. Harvey is not the only psychiatrised person to have been advised to pursue the negligence route as the sole path to justice.

2021[]

Harvey's civil suit is struck out, she is denied the right of legal capacity and Section 377A is invoked against her.

Amongst other things, the decision is informed by NHG's lawyers arguing that she is unfit to represent herself due to an 'abnormality of mind' (specifying 'gender identity disorder'). Her right to legal capacity is denied because she is a psychiatrised person. NHC's lawyers also invoke Section 377A, which means that Harvey cannot get any claims for damages from a civil suit since she was 'engaging' in a criminal act, even though it was actually sexual assault. The court orders that her case cannot be reinstated while Section 377A exists.

2022[]

During Pink Dot 14 held at Hong Lim Park on Saturday, 4 May 2022, a sub-group of brown and Tamil queers staged their own protest to demand justice for Harvey.

After the Pink Dot countdown at dusk, they organised a subsidiary event called Brown Dot and chanted slogans to protest racism within the LGBT community. The following video clip of the protest was uploaded by trans woman Lune Loh to her Facebook on 19 June 2022[8],[9]:

In the video, a group of people are seen holding two large brown banners with white text. One reads “REPEAL RACISM” and the other “JUSTICE4HARVEY”. Other signs written on cardboard sheets were "NO JUSTICE W/O INTERSECTIONALITY", "MORE THAN 377A, POWER TO THE QUEERS" and "WE ARE NOT NUCLEAR, WE ARE QUEER". Tipan and Nisha are standing with linked hands in front of the first banner, and a Pink Dot volunteer, Harvey herself, and main organiser Sachi are standing in front of the second banner with linked hands. Carrie and Derek are standing on the left, holding cardboard signs. Elijah Tay is standing on the right and leading the chants. Tay is no longer associated with this saga in any way.

2023[]

On Friday, 5 May 2023, Harvey was charged with harassment after allegedly making an online post calling for President Halimah Yacob's death by hanging[10]. The District Judge ordered Harvey to be remanded at IMH for a medical examination, and her case was adjourned to 19 May 2023.
On the same day, a Safety4Harvey Instagram account was set up by concerned activists[11].
Three protests were held at various locations to lobby for Harvey's safety and prevention from being warded again at IMH where she was raped in 2014.

HarveyChettiarProtest001 — The first protest was held outside the State Courts on 5 May 2023[3].

HarveyChettiarProtest002 — The second protest was held on 18 May 2023 on the ground floor of the building housing the Attorney-General's Chambers at 1 Pickering Street[4].

HarveyChettiarProtest003 — The third protest was held outside IMH on 12 June 2023[5].

An intended disruption of Pink Dot 15 on 24 June 2023 was aborted due to detection by security officers stationed at the event.

The following posters were uploaded to Pink Dot's Facebook page on Tuesday, 27 June 2023, four days after the event to inform the public about the security incident[12]:

Editable text of the posters:

KEEPING PINK DOT SAFE FOR ALL

1. We are saddened by a series of troubling accounts regarding a security incident at Pink Dot 15, despite our best efforts to keep Pink Dot welcoming and safe for all. We wish to clarify the situation, and share what happened that day.

2. Prior to our 24 June event, Pink Dot was alerted by members of the community to the organisation of an unregistered protest within the park and a potential disruption to the event. In a 3-page document, a group of individuals outlined plans to recruit “~12 people in the core team, and -50 people in the general team” to organise a demonstration at Pink Dot 15 with illuminated banners, and that these plans had to be kept “strictly confidential”, so as to have an “element of surprise”. The document also mentioned a bag containing “operational materials” that a group member needed to “physically safeguard”, and an unknown number of “zero-visibility” personnel attending the event.

3. These organisers claimed within this document that their plan was legal. This is categorically untrue. Any protest or demonstration in Speakers’ Corner must be registered and approved by the authorities, and failing to do so will constitute a contravention of Singapore law. Pink Dot committee members have been held liable in the past for participants’ contraventions of park rules. We run the event at great personal risk, and are ourselves subject to police investigations for any incidents.

4. There was also a real risk of disruption to the safe and smooth participation of Pink Dot attendees, and to our programming. The safety of all attendees is our top priority, and we have to take necessary precautions to ensure their well-being. Given that some of the organisers had previously disrupted Pink Dot in 2022 with unlawful demonstrations (and had been warned not to do so again), we were concerned they might attempt this once more.

5. With this knowledge, we did not lodge a police report or turn the organisers away from the park, as we respected their right to be there as citizens and members of our community, and did not wish to cause undue stress to vulnerable LGBTQ+ people. Nevertheless, we decided to keep an eye out for potential disruptions and try to resolve this as amicably as possible.

6. On event day, the Pink Dot team saw members of the group (Persons A, B and C) enter the park separately. At least one of them, Person B, was a known participant of unlawful demonstrations that disrupted the Pink Dot programme in 2022. Despite giving them the benefit of doubt, the actions of Persons A, B and C throughout the day gave us reasonable cause to suspect that they were indeed planning to stage an unlawful and potentially disruptive demonstration.

a. As part of security checks that all participants have to undergo to enter the park, we found three large plastic jerry cans within Person A’s bag, which were completely empty and marked with duct tape. Security Officers (“SO”), hired to ensure safety and protect attendees from harm, found the objects to be suspicious and requested that they be left behind at the security checkpoint, which Person A agreed to.

b. Persons A, B and C then positioned a large ground sheet in the middle of the formation area, similar to the tactic used by the unlawful demonstrators in 2022. When asked to move their mats to avoid the formation pegs, they refused.

c. We then found long poles with Persons B and C that had bypassed our security checks, smuggled in with other equipment needed by community groups at the community tents.

d. We requested a second round of bag checks within the park, away from the crowd, to ensure that no other potentially disruptive items had bypassed security checks. SOs then discovered a concealed item wrapped in black and sealed with masking tape, within the same large bag brought in by Person A with the plastic jerry cans.

i. Persons B and C both reacted defensively when the concealed item was discovered, raising their voices at the SOs and becoming uncooperative.
ii. The SOs explained that they needed to verify the contents of the concealed item and determine its safety for other participants, but Persons B and C refused further checks.
iii. As SOs were managing this situation, Person B became increasingly agitated and advanced towards the unarmed SOs. When one of them placed his hand on her arm to stop her advance, she made strikes at them with the pointed end of a trekking stick.
iv. Person B then sat on the bag to prevent further access to the unidentified item, while SOs stood close by to monitor and prevent further escalation.
v. For the remainder of the time in the park, Persons A, B and C were given every opportunity to allow SOs to identify this item and resume participation in the dot, but this was consistently rejected.

e. Persons A and C subsequently dispersed. After some time, Person B left the park with the bag and the still-unidentified item.

7. We are responsible for creating a safe and respectful space for all participants and volunteers, and will always take carefully considered actions to prevent hijacks to the event, regardless of the underlying cause being championed. The actions undertaken by these individuals before, during and after the event have not been in good faith. While we did not lodge police reports for last year’s disruptions or this year’s attempt, authorities may choose to conduct their own investigations. We urge the community not to spread any misinformation.

8. Pink Dot SG is dismayed that we have to address this issue, instead of focusing on those for whom we fight to hold this space every year: the thousands of queer people and their allies who showed up to make a stand for a more inclusive Singapore.

9. That said, this is a valuable opportunity to reflect on the ways that the LGBTQ+ community has evolved, and will continue to evolve over time. As the space for advocacy in Singapore becomes increasingly more complex and nuanced, let us always treat each other with humanity and decency, and to conduct conversations civilly, truthfully, and in good faith.

Detailed account of events by Harvey on Instagram[]

Police report filed against rapist[]

Harvey filed a Singapore Police Force (SPF) Report No. J-20141126-2199 against her rapist on Wednesday, 26 November 2014. After waiting for fifteen months, during which a lawyer's letter also had to be sent to chase the Police to do their job, she finally received a letter dated 2 March 2016 from them. It stated that after careful consideration of the facts and circumstances of the case and in consultation with the AGC, the Police had decided not to take further action against the defendant. All investigations and enquiries into the matter would cease and the case would be closed.

Harvey felt that the term "further action" was a misnomer as no action was actually taken against the rapist at all. The Police were thoroughly disinclined to do so as she was undergoing criminal proceedings at the time for offenses which she was thereafter acquitted entirely of on Tuesday, 15 December 2015.

Her police report regarding having been raped in remand was not even considered to be of sufficient severity to be sent to the Criminal Investigation Department's Serious Sexual Crimes Branch, but instead handled internally by the Violence Against Person Squad at Jurong Police Divisional Headquarters, that is, the same group of police officers who had investigated her the previous year, in 2015, for the offenses with which she was charged. Even after she was discharged of all criminal charges, though, the police were not inclined to investigate the allegation of a transgender woman having been raped by a cisgender man during remand detention in the male prison Ward 75A at IMH.

Gender and religious identity[]

HarveyJewishBadge — Harvey's personally designed Jewish badge.

On Saturday, 16 June 2018, just three months into Harvey's social and hormonal transition, she felt that she was already passing well as a trans woman. Up till December 2020, she still identified as an atheistic, transgender Jewish woman and was proud to reclaim the JudenStern as a symbol of pride, by having designed her own badge based as closely as possible on the historical design used during the Middle Ages and especially in World War II in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust.

On 11 May 2021, she uploaded a poster with the message: "I regret not having the courage and emotional fortitude at the age of eight to excise the testicles, as doing so would have saved me from a lifetime of testosterone-induced irreversible disfigurement caused by undergoing masculine puberty. We must save ourselves, as no one else will help us until we reach the legal age of majority, and then it will be too late to undo the damage."

On the morning of Sunday, 17 April 2022, Harvey was baptised at the LGBT-friendly Free Community Church into the family and faith of Jesus Christ. Her sponsor was Charles Yeo Yao Hui, a true believer in the teachings of her personal redeemer Jesus Christ, who was there to walk with her in her journey of faith. Her dear friends Elijah Tay and Kain Tai An Zhou were also present to witness her baptism into Christianity and her commitment to the Christian family and body of the Free Community Church.

Reason for 'act of mischief'[]

In 2020, Harvey was served a charge sheet by an investigation officer from the Police's Central Division for committing an act of mischief on 3 February 2020 at the Supreme Court by flipping over a marble table top valued at $308 causing it to break. The offence was punishable under Section 426 of the Penal Code, Chapter 224 which states: "Whoever commits mischief shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine, or with both."

Harvey explained that she was having a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)-induced flashback in which she imagined that she was attacking her rapist. Moreover, she had made complete restitution for the cost of the table. In spite of this, the State Court still felt inclined to sentence her to a Mandatory Treatment Order, which would require her to attend outpatient sessions at the Institute of Mental Health. This was the same dreaded place where she was detained amongst men and raped by one of them over a period of two years to ostensibly 'improve' her PTSD symptoms so that she would not re-offend by suffering another flashback caused by the PTSD caused by the rape.

The only alternative to the Mandatory Treatment Order was default imprisonment in a male prison, where she would both be forced to detransition by having her hair chopped off and subjected to various gendered forms of violence, in addition to the risk of sexual assault at the hands of male inmates. She was grateful to be represented under the Criminal Legal Aid Scheme (CLAS) as she could not afford to pay for representation.

Despite the fact that she had committed the physical act, she did so without any criminal intent to break the table. Moreover, she had made complete restitution for the cost of the table. She lamented that these distinctions were irrelevant to the Court even though they were stated in the law. On a related note, the Attorney-General's Chambers also expectedly felt the need to misgender her in the charge sheet, and required her to sign an acknowledgment of it being served.

Video of assailant posted[]

On 26 March 2021, Harvey uploaded to her Instagram account, a video of the man whom she alleged raped her, filmed by a private investigator she hired to track him down. She stated that the rape was committed on on Monday, 24 February 2014 and she was repeatedly molested over the next week at IMH's Ward 75A. She revealed his full name and said she had his home address. In spite of providing both to the Police, they did not investigate.

Disagreement with AGC's Statement Of Facts[]

On 13 June 2021, Harvey posted the AGC's Statement Of Facts document which was provided to her on Tuesday, 27 April 2021. Her CLAS-assigned lawyer had subsequently sent a letter according to her instructions on Thursday, 29 April 2021 to the AGC proposing her requested amendments without which she would not plead guilty. However, the AGC had yet to reply to the letter although her ninth Criminal Mention, at which she was expected to plead guilty, is fixed for Tuesday, 15 June 2021. This date was incidentally the first anniversary of her arraignment on Monday, 15 June 2020 at 11:00am in State Court 18C before District Judge Kessler Soh Boon Leng.

Her CLAS-assigned lawyer advised her to plead guilty to the existing Statement Of Facts but Harvey declined to follow her advice and expected that the lawyer might discharge her firm from the case on Tuesday, 15 June 2021. Her acceptance of the AGC's uncorrected Statement Of Facts, including the assertion that she had “to wit” (that is, intentionally) destroyed the marble-top coffee table and the falsehood that she had verbally admitted to the same to the Complainant, would directly contradict her maintenance of her position all along that she had been suffering from a PTSD flashback during the material time; and was intending solely to cause death to the Assailant but not to cause injury to any property, i.e. not even to the Assailant’s own property – and will thus destroy my credibility in regard of my claim of suffering from a PTSD flashback during the material time, and logically could further cast serious doubt upon both her claim of having suffered from PTSD over these past 7¼ years, and also potentially on her sexual assault allegation itself against the Assailant.

As she would not be at peace with herself, either in life or in the next world, if she were to make such false admissions, thereby discrediting herself and denying her suffering, she chose to maintain her personal integrity, although this decision would cause the painful protraction of the criminal proceedings. After Tuesday morning, 15 June 2021, she would thus be unrepresented and in desperate need of a pro bono criminal defense lawyer to represent her at further proceedings and her criminal trial.

Harvey appreciated her CLAS-assigned lawyer's procedural viewpoint that admission to the false assertion and material falsehood in the Statement Of Facts would be of no further consequence once she had been sentenced and had paid the fine (or completed the sentence), and she was grateful for the lawyer's efforts to prevent her incarceration in a male prison. Although not a factor in her decision to maintain her personal integrity, Harvey found it curious that the Complainant was able to telephone the Police at 11:16am, that is, two minutes BEFORE being informed of any commotion or act of mischief.

Harvey's earlier civil suit HCS-1314-2016 against IMH, in the course of which she committed the 'act of mischief', was struck out on Monday, 1 March 2021 due to the lack of pro bono legal representation. This ensured that she would never get civil justice for losing her virginity to sexual assault and then suffering from PTSD all those years. She hoped her criminal case would not similarly end badly, with dire consequences for herself, although she was not expecting to find such a pro bono criminal lawyer willing to represent someone like herself at trial because it was a lot of work.

The Deputy Public Prosecutor, Stephanie Chew, amended the Statement Of Facts on Tuesday, 8th June 2021, but tarried until the morning of 14 June 2021 before giving the Amended Statement Of Facts to Harvey's CLAS-assigned solicitor. This was despite the fact that her ninth Criminal Mention, at which she was expected to plead guilty, was scheduled for the next morning, 15 June 2021 at 11:00am.

The amendments made did not incorporate any corrections which Harvey required, without which she would not plead guilty. Instead, the revision substantially changed the AGC's version of the event, including bolstering the Complainant as a witness who now had allegedly heard Harvey confess to intentional destruction of the marble table, with absolutely no mention of the Assailant. The time of the telephone call being placed to the police was been changed from 11:16am to 11:50am on that day, and the identity of the caller was similarly changed.

Harvey instructed her CLAS-assigned solicitor, to whom she was grateful for her dogged efforts to prevent her incarceration in any male prison, that she would require corrections made to the Amended Statement Of Facts, failing which she would not plead guilty the following morning, and would instead elect to claim trial.

Police report filed by Mercury Jamie Alice[]

On Friday, 13 August 2021 at 8:19am, Harvey's chosen daughter Mercury Jamie Alice, who then also identified as a trans woman, filed a police report against Harvey. Mercury Alice would later recant and confess to filing a false report.

The report alleged that Harvey had confessed to her that she had intentionally committed the act of vandalism (that is, breaking a marble-top coffee table in the Supreme Courthouse on Monday, 3rd February 2020), and also that Harvey had informed her that her defense was premised upon "placing the blame upon [her condition of] post-traumatic stress disorder" was "guaranteed to succeed" in preventing the Public Prosecutor from seeking a custodial sentence for her.

Mercury further alleged that Harvey's motive for suing the National Healthcare Group Pte Ltd, the proprietor of the Institute of Mental Health, was purely for financial gain.

Harvie Chettiar claimed that the above allegations made by Mercury in her SPF Report No. A-20210813-7007 were totally baseless and unfounded, as Harvey sued the National Healthcare Group for compensation for the post-traumatic stress disorder from which she was still suffering due to having been raped and repeatedly molested in IMH. Harvey had damaged the marble-topped coffee-table on Monday, 3 February 2020 during a PTSD-induced flashback, during which she believed that she was attempting to kill the assailant.

While Harvey felt betrayed, she believed that the motive for Mercury's actions were born out of fear, as she had very recently committed an anthrax hoax offense. Mercury thus could have had hoped that assisting the AGC to convict her for the intentional destruction of the marble-top coffee table might stand her in good stead to ask for a non-custodial sentence for herself; as she was desperate to avoid being incarcerated in a men's prison environment.

Mercury also suffers from dissociative identity disorder, thus her ability to perceive ownership of these actions and intentions is questionable.

As Harvey was still traumatized from this treachery and was not in a suitable emotional state to assist Mercury with finding resources for her criminal defense and/or mitigation, she pleaded with concerned parties to reach out to her directly if they would like to give her assistance.

On Sunday, 15 August 2021, Harvey filed a police report against her chosen daughter Mercury Jamie Alice in order to place on record that the allegations made by her in her SPF Report No. A-20210813-7007 were completely false, and thereby sought to vindicate herself of those allegations.

Harvey explained that on Monday 3 February 2020, while waiting in the Level 2 Common Area of the Supreme Courthouse to attend the 33rd Pre-Trial Conference of her High Court Suit No. 1314 of 2016, which had been struck out on Monday, 1 March 2021 for lack of a pro bono lawyer to conduct her civil case), she experienced a PTSD-induced flashback during which she thought she was fighting Syafik, the man who raped her on Monday, 24 February 2014 and then repeatedly molested her over one week, under the brief belief that he was physically present.

She neither intended to cause, nor knew herself to be likely to cause through her actions, any damage to any property at all whatsoever, not even to Syafik's own property. She felt she was thus not guilty of either the offense of Mischief under Section 425 / Section 426 of the Penal Code (Chapter 224) or the offense of Vandalism under Section 2(b) and Section 3 of the Vandalism Act (Chapter 341), due to her absence of intention.

She was of the opinion that the actual crime which she did commit, and for which the Attorney-General's Chambers should have charged her, was the offense of Attempt To Murder under Section 307 of the Penal Code (Chapter 224). She noted that factual physical impossibility was not a defense as per the written judgment in the Criminal Appeal No. 31 of 2018, (refer to 2020 SGCA 11).

If Syafik had physically been in front of her on Monday, 3 February 2020 in the physical environs of her flashback, his chair would have been flipped over, and he would indeed have been propelled down a flight of steps, she hoped, to his death. This would comprise an offence under Section 300(d).

Recanting the report[]

On Thursday, 2 September 2021, Mercury Jamie Alice filed a police report to officially place on record that her allegations in her earlier SPF Report No. A-20210813 -7007 were false.

While Harvey was grateful for the resolution, the incident also ended their close relationship.

Vandalism case[]

On the night of Wednesday, 1 September 2021, an Investigation Officer, SSSgt Jason Lim Sze Yong, telephoned and and then emailed Harvey's mother to inform her that she would be required as a prosecution witness at the trial of Harvey's case for vandalism, and that she was hence required to be available for the entire period of six months from September 2021 to the end of February 2022. This was despite her mother lacking a clear memory of the incident in which she had broken the table, though she had physically tried to hold Harvey back from running (within her flashback) at the assailant so as to murder him.

She just turned 21 years of age that day, and what ought to otherwise have been an entirely happy occasion, as she had expected in previous years to not actually live beyond the age of 30, was instead tinged with the heavy air of anxiety. This was on account of her upcoming tenth Pre-Trial Conference in a fortnight's time, on Monday, 20 September 2021 at 10:30am in Chambers 8-41 in the PTC Center at the State Courthouse Tower.

She currently remained unrepresented and was ineligible to obtain a pro bono criminal defense counsel under the Criminal Legal Aid Scheme because she had already been assigned a solicitor, who had since discharged herself due to Harvey's refusal to accept her advice to plead guilty and thus falsely admit that she had broken the table with the knowledge that she could cause wrongful loss or damage, and she did not have any money to engage a solicitor.

She desperately needed a pro bono criminal defense lawyer to act for her on Monday, 20 September 2021 at 10:30am at the PTC, and she also needed a pro bono criminal defense lawyer to defend her, based on the truth, at the trial of her vandalism case.

She was well aware that this was a huge request from a brown woman of transgender experience, but she was hoping that somewhere in Singapore there existed a white knight who would come to her legal aid.

Police harassment[]

On Thursday, 7 October 2021 at about 12:20pm, at which time she was hiking in Clementi Forest, an Investigation Officer, Roger Seah Ming Hui, of Bedok Police Divisional Investigation Branch, together with 4 other police officers, visited the verandah of her residence and harassed her mother. She was informed by her mother, and fixed an appointment with Roger Seah, via a telephone call, to be interviewed the next day at 2:00pm at Bedok Police Divisional Headquarters.

But despite committing to the appointment, the Police then visited the verandah of her residence again at about 7:30pm demanding both entry and to speak with her immediately. Upon being informed of these developments, she rushed home, rested for some time, and then proceeded to Choa Chu Kang Neighborhood Police Center at about midnight to demand an explanation from the Police, given the apparent urgency of the situation, but Roger Seah refused to appear there.

Questions regarding Mercury's bomb hoax[]

On Friday, 8 October 2021 in the afternoon, she was questioned for hours by Investigation Officer Benjamin Voon and two other male police officers, regarding the bomb hoax offense committed by Mercury Jamie Alice on Monday, 9 August 2021.

Mercury had claimed Harvey was an accomplice, though Harvey knew nothing about the bomb hoax. While Mercury was diagnosed with serious mental illness, the police were still required to be fair and do a complete investigation.

However, as there was neither an appropriate adult nor any female officer present, Harvey was apprehensive about whether she would be released if she did not admit to anything. She could not clearly recall at at the time when she had last visited Mercury prior to her arrest for the bomb hoax. Harvey incorrectly admitted to having visited her on the day before her offense, though in reality, she had not traveled out of her home at all that day.

She also had to sign a consent form for a polygraph examination, despite her concern that she was likely to fail any polygraph test due to her PTSD condition. Officer Benjamin Voon held that because Mercury's offence was not at all connected to the cause of her PTSD, the latter would have no impact on a polygraph machine.

Consequent to the interview, the three male police officers brought Harvey back to her residence, which was then searched. Both her personal computer and Nokia 8 smartphone were seized, with the oral suggestion by Officer Benjamin Voon that her devices could be returned as soon as 13 October 2021.

The police officer in charge of the investigation is was Roger Seah Ming Hui of the Bedok Police Division.

Harvey's personal computer and mobile-phone, which together contained irreplaceable data which she had created over the past twelve years, had not been returned to her to date, and so she had not been able to continue with her normal life.

She also had to procure a secondhand Nokia 7 Plus mobile phone to use in the interim until such time that her electronic devices were returned, although the Nokia 7 Plus smartphone was nowhere as capable as her seized Nokia 8 mobile phone.

In addition, as her seized electronic devices together contained every copy of the various legal and medical documents germane to her over the past several years, her inability to access the documents due to the continued retention by the Police of her devices ensured that she would not be able to use the relevant documents in her defense at the trial of her own vandalism matter. She would thus have to go empty-handed to trial, and inform the DPP and the judge that she had no defense to submit at her trial.

The continued deprivation of access to her 12 years of data, together with the hopeless prospects for her criminal trial in the absence of the documents and records for her defense, caused her to grow increasingly despondent over time.

Suicide attempt[]

On the late night of Friday, 5 November 2021 in a public park, she attempted suicide by trying to cut the radial artery of her left forearm with a razor blade, but she experienced second thoughts and thus aborted the attempt. However, the Singapore Civil Defense Force was called, and three police officers accompanied them to take her to the hospital.

She was conveyed via ambulance to Ng Teng Fong General Hospital's Emergency Department. The doctors there were insistent, on account of her conditions of post-traumatic stress disorder and gender dysphoria, upon sending her to the Institute of Mental Health. This was despite her protests, since she feared being abused in a psychiatric facility again.

Ultimately, the doctors at Ng Teng Fong General Hospital decided to admit her to NTFGH itself rather than sending her to IMH, but she was placed on Saturday 6 November at 3:06pm in Bed 32 of Ward B7, – which was a male ward. she consulted the doctor there at 4:00pm and raised her issues with him, but he stated that she would have to be warded at least until Monday, 8 November 2021 so that a psychiatrist could assess whether she was mentally fit for discharge. The hospital's hands were tied with regard to placing her in a male ward, as unless her sex marker was updated in her NRIC, which was impossible because of the State's refusal to recognise non-operative transgender women, NTFGH could not legally place her in any female ward.

Subsequently, she chose to sneak out of Ward B7 and then break out of the building by jumping over a security gate in order to avoid remaining in the male ward until Monday or longer. Moreover, there was no certainty as to her discharge on Monday either.

Harvey was then sought by, and successfully evaded, the Police for 17 hours before they visually verified her physical safety, and then agreed to stop pursuing her to return to NTFGH. The hospital itself still needed to assess her before it could discharge her but had no authority outside its premises.

On Thursday 18th November 2021, consequent to my publication of the InstaGram story whose text is stated in this charge sheet, I had received a telephone call at 1:05pm from Bedok Police Divisional Headquarters, demanding that I attend at the same immediately – but I declined, and instead arranged an appointment at 3PM on Monday 22 November.

On Monday, 22 November 2021, Harvey was interviewed at Bedok Police Divisional Headquarters in Room 3-17E by Inspector Joel Mok Kai Jun from 3:23pm to 6:05pm in regard of various posts/stories which she had previously published on InstaGram.

At 6:06pm, she was placed under arrest by Inspector Joel Mok Kai Jun, and taken to a holding-area wherein she was searched by three female officers, but still with a few male officers watching, and had her belongings and even some articles of clothing such as her belt, which she needed to hold up her pants, taken away and sealed in green tamper-evident plastic bags.

Her pant loops were then tightened by female officers using zip-ties to prevent her pants from sliding down or falling off.

As she vociferously and violently objected to being searched or even touched by male officers, she was considered to be quite emotionally unstable, and thus detained inside a padded-cell wherein she experienced a few panic attacks and broke down.

On Tuesday, 23 November 2021, some time after midnight, she was conveyed, wearing slippers and tied in grip restraints, in a police squad car with two male police officers to Changi General Hospital's Emergency Department where I was kept in a holding-room for hours, further handcuffed, on top of the grip restraints, to her wheelchair, and also exposed to the view of members of the public present at the venue.

The grip restraints compressed her wrists to such an extent that they caused terrible pain in her hands. Three days later, she still had not regained full strength of her hands.

After that, she was conveyed, still tied in grip restraints, in a police squad car with the same two male police officers back to Bedok Police Divisional Headquarters where she was stored in Cell R7 for many hours. In it, she intermittently slept and wept.

On Tuesday, 23 November 2021 in the afternoon, she was taken to an interview room where Assistant Superintendent Shahudin and Third Sergeant Nikita Wong served her charge sheets for the charges MAC-910699-2021 and MAC-910700-2021, and took her cautioned statements in regard of both charges even though she had unsuccessfully asked for, but was refused, the presence of any appropriate adult.

As she had drunk water but declined solid food so that she would not have to expose her derrière in front of the camera in the lock-up cell in order to defecate, she was unclear while giving her cautioned statements, and unsure as to what she answered.

Nonetheless, she was grateful to Third Sergeant Nikita Wong just insofar as she had agreed to correct the gender stated in the charge sheets, failing which she would have refused to sign or otherwise acknowledge the allegation of being male, and so would not have been able to give cautioned statements.

She was also informed that the police had cleared her, for the present time, of the anthrax hoax offence committed by Mercury Jamie Alice on Monday, 9 August 2021. Hence her computer and mobile-phone, which had been seized on Friday, 8 October 2021, were technically returned to her.

Afterwards, she was returned to Cell R7, wherein she was stored for the remainder of the night except for being brought out to interview rooms multiple times for further interrogation.

On Wednesday, 24 November 2021, in the morning at around 8:00am, she was taken to a holding cell from where she was then arraigned in the State Court for the charges MAC-910699-2021 and MAC-910700-2021 via video link (that is, physically from a video-conferencing room), and admitted to bail of $10,000.

Then, at 9:50am, she was detained in Cell R5 pending processing of her bail bond which was pledged by her mother, and then held at around 11:30am in a holding cell where her articles of clothing and some other belongings were returned to her. She was finally released from police custody only after 12 noon.

Lobbying against death penalty[]

On the afternoon of Christmas Day 2021, Harvey and her mother delivered to The Istana the original hard copy of her letter of Saturday, 27 November 2021 to Madam President Halimah Binte Yacob, pleading for the life of Nagaenthran A/L K Dharmalingam to be spared via Presidential clemency. Some useful information regarding the delivery of letters to The Istana's mailroom, which had not been stated elsewhere and which Harvey thus did not know beforehand, was that one would be permitted to bring only one's mobile device and the letter itself beyond the Guardhouse. One would have to deposit even one's handbag at the Guardhouse before proceeding onwards. However, Harvey was completely unwilling to leave her vest, which she usually wore in lieu of any handbag, behind. She had to request her mother to assist her with the delivery of the clemency letter up to the mailroom.

On the early morning of Wednesday, 27 April 2022 at about 2:00am, Harvey arrived with several friends at the Upper Changi North Esso Station B and then rested in a corner as they prepared written messages to be passed to the family of Nagaenthran A/L K Dharmalingam, who was soon to be executed by hanging. At about 3:40am, someone in the group was approached by the Police and they consequently walked over to the Bukit Loyang Mariam Park where they rested at a couple of tables. Some of the other people in the group continued writing messages to be given to Nagaenthran's family members.

At about 4:00am, the group was approached by 3 policemen, who inaudibly conversed with several of its members. At 6:00am, they observed one minute of silence to psychologically comfort each other and remember the life of Nagaenthran just as he was being killed inside Changi Prison Complex.

Harvey, being a person with intellectual disabilities whose rights and protections, under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which Singapore was a signatory of, had been cruelly disregarded by the Attorney-General's Chambers. This caused severe and indelible impact on her life. As such, she was extremely moved by Nagaenthran's case as his rights and protections under the UN CRPD had also been disregarded by the unjust system. She thus came to support others moved by the matter. Their whole group was extremely saddened by the State-inflicted murder of Nagaenthran who deserved to live.

At about 6:10am, seven unidentified police officers accosted the group for about twenty minutes, and both video-recorded them and insisted on noting down their NRIC particulars. They did this despite being unable, upon being questioned by multiple members of the group, to cite the specific section(s) of the Criminal Procedure Code which empowered them to take these actions. None of the police officers disclosed what crime their group was committing by gathering at a public park either. Subsequently, shortly after 6:30am, she left the park with her friends and the rest of the group dispersed.

Grandfather's death[]

On Sunday, 26 December 2021 at about 6:00am, Harvey's ailing and aged grandfather, Sundara Rajan s/0 Ramiah Chettiar, keeled over on his kitchen floor while preparing coffee. He was discovered shortly after and conveyed via ambulance to the nearby Ng Teng Fong General Hospital, where a doctor pronounced him dead before 8:00am. Apart from his long history of cardiac issues, he was an otherwise healthy man.

On Monday, 27 December 2021, Harvey's grandfather was embalmed in a funeral parlor at Block 38, Sin Ming Drive. Thereafter, his corpse was cremated in the Mandai Crematorium and Columbarium Complex consequent to some funerary rituals.

On Tuesday 28 December 2021, the cremated remains of her grandfather's corpse were collected by Harvey and three others at the Ash Collection Center, and then buried at sea later in the same morning, during which she recited the Jewish prayer: "Baruch atah Hashem Elokeinu melech haolam, dayan ha’emet."

Her grandfather was born on Sunday, 16 September 1934 and arrived on Singapore's shores in 1951 at the age of 17 to seek his fortune and build a new life for himself. He had later married Harvey's grandmother, the love of his life, on Friday, 26 May 1961. He was completely faithful to her during the entirety of their marriage of 60 years and 7 months. (His date of birth, and consequent age at death, stated in the Certificate of Registration of Death, was wrong as as his date of birth was misrecorded on his arrival in 1951.)

Her grandfather made Singapore his home for 7 decades, raising a daughter (namely, Harvey's mother) and his younger son here, while his eldest son and other daughter chose to remain in India. His elder son, a homosexual, stayed closeted for most of his adult life, marrying a woman and fathering one daughter. The son passed away before Harvey's grandfather, suffering a wholly untimely death.

Harvey's grandfather's younger son, also a homosexual, left Singapore after completing his National Service, met the love of his life in another country, and has been happily married for decades. His other daughter married and bore a son who died too soon, succumbing to severe long-term mental health issues.

Petition started[]

On 26 February 2022, Harvey's good friend Elijah Tay had started a public petition addressed to the Attorney-General requesting him to have the Attorney-General's Chambers withdraw all pending criminal charges against her.

She urged readers of her Instagram account to sign the petition if they agree that she should not be put into a male prison and forced to detransition for longer than the sentence period itself, and in addition also be subjected therein to severe gendered violence and sexual humiliation.

A QR code was posted which, when scanned, led to the website of the petition. Readers were requested to share the QR code and/or the following URL with their family and friends:

https://www.change.org/p/attorney-general-of-singapore-mr-lucien-wong-yuen-kai-drop-all-criminal-charges-against-a-traumatized-transgender-survivor-of-sexual-assaults

The body of the petition was preceded by a trigger warning (TW) of transphobia, sexual assault, mentions of suicide, incarceration, and state-sanctioned gendered violence.

Harvey pleaded with readers to help persuade the Attorney-General's Chambers to spare her from a fate worse than death's peaceful finality.

First lesbian party[]

Harvey attended her first lesbian clubbing party in over two years on the night of Saturday, 21 May 2022 at Projector X at Riverside Point, with some good friends. (The published photographs of the event were selected so as not to focus on any individual. Other photographs which might have focused inadvertently upon specific women would never be published.)

After she contracted a sexually-transmitted infection on Monday, 24 February 2014 which caused damage to her stomach, she had become unable to digest alcoholic drinks and thus remained completely sober at all of the monthly HerStory Girls' Parties which she had attended between June 2018 and February 2020, and could only drink mocktails during all of her various visits to her favorite LGBTQ venue in Singapore – May Wong's Café.

However, on the night of Saturday, 21 May 2022, after praying to her personal redeemer Lord Jesus Christ to be healed, and taking medicinal charcoal to mitigate the medical impact in case her prayer was not answered, she drank gin with tonic.

She discovered that although she was not fully healed, alcohol could now be digested so long as she took medicinal charcoal before consuming any alcohol. Although she did experience the effects of alcohol successfully, she stayed sufficiently sober to assist an old friend, whom she had not met in nearly 3 years, to get home safely, as her friend was inebriated and unwell after drinking.

On the evening of Sunday, 22 May 2022, she participated in the Rainbow Families Photoshoot with her mother and two chosen family members. The photographs were exhibited at Intermission Bar.

On the night of Sunday, 22 May 2022, she had my second bout of successful alcohol consumption, this time with a close buddy at her favorite place to unwind – Buzzed Bar.

Harvey was slapped with a lifetime ban on Monday, 29th November 2022 by the Tantric complex, which contained May Wong's Café, for performing certain oral sexual activities in the restroom, even though she had not even wanted to perform the said activity.

She requested any queer people who would like to be her drinking buddy to drop her a message on Instagram and they could plan a drinking session.

Police report filed against Mercury[]

On Thursday, 11 August 2022, consequent to the defamation of Harvey between Sunday, 17 and Friday, 22 of July 2022, she filed a police report against Mercury Jamie Alice. She believed it necessary due to allegations of Alice harassing other people too.

In the interest of transparency, Harvey blocked both Mercury and his two known sexual partners' known InstaGram accounts from accessing the contents of Harvey's InstaGram account, as no stories or posts on her InstaGram account are intended to be communicated to either Mercury or his two sexual partners.

Harvey had chosen to not file a police report in regard of the theft and/or destruction on Friday, 18 February 2022 of the property which she had paid to store with Mercury, and further not to pursue any civil action to recover damages either as she had wanted to have nothing more to do with any of them in her lifetime. However, but Mercury seemed incapable of leaving her be, and instead had insisted upon unjustly tarring her reputation.

Harvey wanted to have nothing to do with Mercury's endless quarrels with whomsoever he found some reason to fight with, and she had thought that she was completely divorced of Mercury and his life, until he chose to begin harassing and slandering her. She hoped that the Singapore Police Force would request Mercury and his associates to leave her alone, and just live their own lives without further harassing her or injuring her reputation.

On Thursday, 1 September 2022, consequent to the continuing defamation of Harvey from Tuesday, 16 August 2022 to Wednesday, 17 August 2022, she filed a police report against Mercury, whose persistent actions in harassing a growing number of victims had necessitated the filing of police reports by many of the aforesaid victims.

On Monday, 5 September 2022, consequent to events of the preceding period of 2 months, 2 weeks and 2 days (that is, starting from Monday, 20 June 2022) and the actions of Mercury dating as far back as Friday, 13 August 2021, Harvey filed her Claim No. PHC-10330-2022 against Mercury Jamie Alice before the Protection From Harassment Courts.

On Thursday, 8 September 2022, Harvey attended an Expedited Protection Order Case Management Conference in the State Courts (via Zoom video conferencing) before the Honorable District Judge Jill Tan, who granted to her the Expedited Protection Order No. PHC-ORC-80501-2022 against Mercury Jamie Alice, with a comprehensive set of seven conditions; intended to mitigate, inter alia, the hazard posed to her life.

On Wednesday, 21 September 2022, she served the Notice of Case Management Conference, together with the Expedited Protection Order, on Mercury Jamie Alice by sending them to his email address on record with State Courts. This was because his home address was not known to Harvey. She also filed her Declaration Of Service with a screenshot of the sent email.

The respondent, Mercury Jamie Alice, had 14 days, until Wednesday, 5 October 2022, to file his response (with supporting documents) if he chose to contest her claim.

The next Case Management Conference was now scheduled on Friday, 4 November 2022 at 2:30pm at the State Courthouse, with her Claim No. PHC-10330-2022 against Mercury Jamie Alice joined with his false Claim No. PHC-10295-2022 against herself and two other respondents for conferences and trial.

On Wednesday, 19 October 2022, consequent to Mercury's breach of Harvey's Expedited Protection Order against him, which went into effect immediately upon being served to him on Wednesday, 21 September 2022 at 6:12pm, Harvey filed a police report to seek their protection.

Although breaching the Expedited Protection Order made Mercury liable to enforcement to compel him to obey the Court Order, Harvey was not aware of either the Singapore Police Force or the State Courts taking any enforcement action, and Mercury remained free to continue breaching the EPO.

On Saturday, 5 November 2022, consequent to the doxxing by Mercury of the personal particulars of Harvey and 4 other persons who were parties to multiple cases in the Protection From Harassment Courts against Mercury, Harvey filed another police report to request action by them.

As her doxxed personal particulars included her home address, she was gravely concerned that any other person who might want to harm her, or even an opportunistic offender, was now enabled to easily ambush her in the vicinity of my residence to cause any hurt to her; and she was hence sufficiently psychologically stressed by this as to stay elsewhere for the time being.

Despite both her Expedited Protection Order and her family friend Carissa Cheow Hui Ying's Expedited Protection Order being breached by Mercury, no enforcement action appeared to have been taken against him to prevent more breaches. In other words, Mercury remained free to continue breaching both EPOs.

Based upon the lack of enforcement action against Mercury to give effect to Expedited Protection Orders issued by the Protection From Harassment Courts, Harvey opined that the latter was essentially toothless and the EPOs were dead letters except for provisions against physically going within fifty meters of the claimant, which if breached was immediately arrestable without a warrant and therefore could genuinely be enforced.

Lune Loh protests against trans women being remanded or jailed with men in prison[]

On Transgender Day of Visibility, 31 March 2024, trans woman Lune Loh protested at the Attorney-General's Chambers and the State Courts against trans women being remanded or jailed with men in prison. She also issued the following press statement[13]:

"FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(content warnings: graphic detailing of rape, assault, sexual violence, and incarceration)

Today, on 31st March 2024, I stood outside both the AGC and near the State Courts, for trans women in Singapore are still being remanded and incarcerated in male prisons. I do not wish to be silent any further on the kind of conditions we as trans women face in male prisons. Many trans women in Singapore who face incarceration, or who are incarcerated, are pre-operative (largely due to being unable to afford it) or non-operative, and are thus not legally considered female by State authorities. Therefore, they still end up in male prisons with cis-male inmates and guards. Regardless of whether trans women are remanded or sentenced to prison, they are forced to be in male prisons. I know because my friend Harvey was held in a male remand cell in police custody in 2013, and was additionally placed in an IMH forensic ward with cis-male patients in 2013, 2014 and 2023. I know because another femme-presenting intersex senior of mine from my High School has been in a forensic ward in IMH with cis-male patients. I know because Harvey has told me about what her other trans women friends have gone through in prison. None of those friends of hers are alive today after what they went through.

What do trans women face in a male prison? Trauma and suffering that will break them completely, which is entirely different from what a cis-man in remand or incarceration will experience. If Harvey is remanded to prison, like trans women before her, she would be placed in a male housing unit, be trapped with 3 to 7 men in a cell, and be treated as a man by the inmates and guards, not as the woman she is. Even if she were placed in a cell with other trans women, male inmates would be added to fill the capacity of the cell, she would still be subjected to male authority figures for strip-searches, and she would have to interact with cis-male inmates during the course of her incarceration. She would have to endure mandatory and forced strip-searches in groups of 5 to 10 men – in both her initial admission to prison, and subsequently each time that she is moved between security areas and is out of her cell. She would be forced to have skin-to-skin contact with the male guards, and stripped completely from neck down. She would be forced to undress, shower, defecate in front of her male cellmates every day, which would be extremely humiliating for her. This means that as a woman, her body would be forcibly exposed, with private areas of her body being invaded by male guards against her consent. Many trans women who have gone through prison would have their hair shortened upon conviction, and have to endure a long-term change in appearance, i.e. continue looking male for years even after release since hair takes that long to grow back to their female length, which is psychologically torturous.

On 5th May 2023, in one such instance of strip-searching that occurred when her bail was revoked and she was taken into custody, multiple male security officers tore off her underwear and tights, so that they could force apart her buttocks in order to shine a flashlight into it, while painfully squeezing her breasts to check for contraband in her skin folds. Precisely because she was resisting them, she felt the officers' fingers press down harder on her buttocks until their fingers penetrated her anus. This is nothing short of rape. Upon being dragged out of her holding cell in the State Courts Tower (which is still a male custodial environment), she had to endure beatings to every part of her body, to the point where her body went into shock, and she involuntarily urinated and ejaculated in front of the security officers who were harming her, with the officers callously remarking that she had no shame.

Due to the above, Harvey has told me that she feels the needs to suppress relieving herself, to abstain from eating or drinking entirely, if she were to be incarcerated during her pre-trial remand, just to avoid any humiliation due to urination or defecation, even if this might lead to her being lawfully force-fed. This would cause her adverse bodily complications with lasting consequences to both her physical and psychological health. Should she be strip-searched again, Harvey would understandably be likely to resist that violation, but that would be taken by the male guards as further authorization to expend force on her, creating the conditions for the Prosecution to potentially stack her with more charges, which could attract judicial caning, for attempting to hurt public servants – simply for resisting against her gender and sexual dignity being infringed upon. All this is despite her existing past traumas from being violated by men and male security figures, including a rape by a male patient in IMH in 2014 when she was placed in a male ward to assess her fitness to plead a charge. All this would psychologically break her.

There is no way I could sleep soundly at night knowing these details. There can be no way to live normally if this continues. Trans women are known to face abuse from men. Many of us are traumatized by men and male authority figures. Trans women being incarcerated and placed into male prisons with male guards is nothing short of torturous, and violating our dignities as women. It is no wonder many of us do not survive remand or incarceration. I stand here knowing that I might face incarceration myself for this, and knowing fully that I can perish from the deadly conditions trans women in prison faced before me. I have long decided to myself that, for the safety and peace of trans, non-binary, and queer communities in Singapore, I am willing to stake my finances, my future, and my body. This is but a small price to pay, considering how the violence and pain endured by incarcerated trans women have been wiped off the face of this country, and the rest of the world. Solidarity with trans women who had to endure male custody and prison: with Vickreman Harvey Chettiar, with Sarah Jane Baker, with Ashley Diamond (who was raped in a male prison 14 times), with the late Vikki Louise Angie Jade Thompson and the late Marjorie Harwood (both who died while in male prison), and countless others in Singapore and the World. Trans women should not be in male remand or prisons.

NoToMaleRemand #Safety4Harvey #ProtectTransInmates

Lune Loh"

According to her friend, Joyce Ng, the police refused to arrest her formally, presumably to avoid a public spectacle[14]. However, they took her placard, and wanted her to comply in following them back to the station for interrogation. It was uncertain when she would be released.

Harvey charged for verbal abuse of District Judges[]

On Thursday, 23 May 2024, Harvey, then 33 years of age, was handed eight fresh charges over abusive language towards two District Judges of the State Courts[15]. Four of these related to his conduct towards the two female judges, including calling both "judicial prostitutes". She now faced a total of 12 charges. Harvey's new charges comprised four under the Protection from Harassment Act for her verbal tirade against the District Judges, two for failing to attend court, one for fabricating false evidence, and one for using criminal force at a hospital.

On 28 February 2024, Harvey allegedly made a FormSG submission to the State Courts calling two female District Judges "judicial prostitutes". According to charge sheets, Harvey purportedly went on to verbally abuse one of these judges in further emails. On 1 March 2024, she was said to have sent an email to a person where she verbally abused the judge, stating that the judge "deserves to have her face smashed in and her lips sewn shut". The next day, targeting the same judge, Harvey purportedly sent an email calling her a "judicial prostitute".

On 8 March 2024, Harvey called the police hotline and said over the phone, "I am going to find (the judge) and I am going to smash all her teeth in, slash her face off and stab her in the eye”. Separately, Harvey was also accused of failing to attend court on 5 March and 22 March 2024. She was also said to have pushed a person on the chest while at the National University Hospital on 7 March 2024.

For the charge of fabricating false evidence, Harvey was said to have made a false police report on 18 March 2024. In this report, she allegedly stated that she called the police hotline on 8 March 2024 to report that her email had been hacked. She provided this police report for her lawyer to tender in court for the purpose of resisting the revocation of her bail, according to her charge sheet. According to court records, Harvey had been remanded since 6 April 2024.

Her case was fixed for a pre-trial conference on 10 June 2024. If convicted of making abusive communications towards the judges, Vickreman may be jailed up to a year, fined up to S$5,000, or both. If convicted of making threatening communications with intent to cause a person to believe violence would be used against the judge, she may be jailed up to a year, or fined up to S$5,000, or both. If convicted of using criminal force, she may be jailed up to three months, or fined up to S$1,500, or both. If convicted of giving or fabricating false evidence for a judicial proceeding, she may be jailed up to seven years, and fined. For failing to attend court, she may face a jail term of up to three years, and a fine, or both.

Plea for prosecutorial compassion[]

On 31 July 2024, trans woman Lune Loh posted the following message on Facebook [16]:

"URGENT, PLEASE LIKE AND SHARE:
on 14 June 2024, myself, @quantumcatgirl[17], and 49 others jointly signed a Plea for Prosecutorial Compassion for Singaporean trans woman Harvey. she now faces 9 strokes of the cane for resisting strip-searches by male prison officers.
the conditions in Singapore's prisons disproportionately affect trans women. due to trauma from male violence and sexual violence, it is more likely that they commit offences while incarcerated, creating a vicious cycle of offending the longer they are held in prisons.
last month, a Singapore Prison Service (SPS) psychiatrist revoked Harvey's gender dysphoria diagnosis, because she resisted the aforementioned strip-searches by male prison officers and does not show "deference to men".
they are now injecting her with testosterone shots.
these intolerable conditions result in many trans women not surviving long after they are released from prison.
she is being subject to inhumane and degrading treatment while in remand with NO END IN SIGHT, traumatizing her so that she is unable to testify in her own defense.
our adversaries have long been gloating about wanting to severely traumatize Harvey by getting her locked up in remand. conviction is not the point — the cruelty IS THE POINT, and is EXACTLY WHAT IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW.
we pray for Harvey to be granted bail at the soonest.
letter URL: [18] "

Text of letter:

"FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
31 JULY 2024
On 14 June 2024, we sent and released a Plea for Prosecutorial Compassion, signed by 51 people including both of us, addressed to Deputy Public Prosecutors Eric Hu Youda and Shaun Lim Sheng Kang, the Prosecutors handling the criminal case of Singaporean trans woman Vickreman Harvey Chettiar. The Plea traverses the events leading up to Harvey's arrest, and details the gender and sexual suffering, as well as physical infirmities, Harvey has experienced in pre-trial remand in a male Prison environment. As signatories to the plea, we asked the Prosecution to exercise compassion, and grant Harvey bail.
It is now a month and a half since the Plea was sent to the Prosecutors. Harvey has been remanded in Changi Prison for 117 days, and her suffering has intensified. It appears that the Prosecution has been inherently incapable of compassion, and the Court's appetite for destroying trans women has been insatiable.
We reproduce Paragraph 55 of our Plea for Prosecutorial Compassion:
"55. It is thus natural, understandable, and expected that a female remandee, or any female person for that matter, would resist being inappropriately touched, stripped, and viewed by male persons so as not to expose their bodies involuntarily to such male persons. As such, the longer that Harvey is kept in a male Prison, the more likely it is that she will be charged for even more offences, whether it be internal Prison offences subject to internal Prison disciplinary consequences which could include caning, or fresh criminal charges tendered in Court, because it will become more frequent in occurrence that she will need to defend herself from strip-searches and other procedural sexual abuses, and these will by definition only happen more frequently the longer she is incarcerated."
Indeed, this has come to pass. Harvey is now due to face 9 strokes of the cane for resisting strip searches by male officers, which is counted as a prison offence. The future is bleak. Harvey asks everyone who has loved or cared for her to pray for Divine mercy, for her to die peacefully in her sleep before the caning can be carried out.
Regrettably and with grief,
Jointly Signed,
Lune Loh
Joyce Ng"

References[]

Acknowledgements[]

Roy Tan contributed much of this article.

Harvey Chettiar saga

Contents