Ex pre-school vice-principal & executive director, who covered-up cook's molest of 2-year-old, sentenced to jail

Two women who were involved in the cover-up of the molest of a two-year-old girl by Teo Guan Huat, 61, a preschool cook, were sentenced to jail on Jan. 19, 2026.

The former vice-principal, 49, was handed a jail term of three months and two weeks, while the former preschool executive director, 59, was jailed for four months, according to CNA.

The preschool and its senior management cannot be named due to a gag order protecting the identities of the victims, who were aged between one and two when the offences took place.

According to court documents, District Judge Sharmila Sripathy-Shanaz stated that educators have the paramount duty to act as protectors and shield their wards from harm, noting that their conduct "was antithetical to this fundamental duty".

Teo's crimes

Teo, the former preschool cook, pleaded guilty on Oct. 27, 2025, to charges of outrage of modesty against three girls, all aged two or below.

On Nov. 10, 2025, Teo was sentenced to nine years, four months and seven weeks' jail, including nine months of imprisonment in place of 18 strokes of the cane, as he is over 50 and cannot be caned by law.

While his primary duties were as a cook, Teo assisted teachers during naptime, laying out mattresses and patting the children to sleep.

He admitted to molesting the girls, whom he knew by name, when teachers were not looking.

He would put his hands into their diapers or pants and rub their privates with four of his fingers, before bringing his fingers to his face, stated court documents.

The abuse was estimated to have been committed around two to three times a week, from May to Nov. 16, 2023.

Cover-up

On Nov. 16, 2023, the former vice-principal, who was in Singapore at the time, reviewed the CCTV footage that caught Teo in the act.

However, the principal and executive director were on an overseas work trip, attending a safeguarding course on the protection of children from abuse.

After a group video call, the women rescheduled their flights to earlier.

Upon their return, the women, alongside the chairwoman who oversaw the preschool, had a meeting where they discussed the implications of this discovery.

Instead of reporting the crime to the authorities, on Nov. 21, 2023, the senior managers weighed reasons on whether to cover up Teo's crimes.

The executive director suggested that they settle the matter quietly by asking Teo to resign, as the two-year-old victim was asleep and "not really affected".

After days of deliberation, on Nov. 23, 2023, the chairwoman decided not to report the matter to police.

A day later, on the afternoon of Nov. 24, 2023, the chairwoman had another discussion with other members of the school management committee and decided to report the matter.

Upon hearing that the chairwoman wanted to report the matter to the police, the executive director instructed the principal and vice-principal to prepare their resignation letters at around 8pm on Nov. 24.

Reformatted hard disk that contained CCTV footage

On the night of Nov. 25 and the morning of Nov. 26, 2023, the executive director and vice-principal discussed overwriting the CCTV recordings.

WhatsApp exchanges between the two women also showed their calculated plans to destroy evidence, as the former executive director contemplated altering system settings to auto-overwrite the footage every two weeks.

On Nov. 26, the vice-principal on the instruction of the executive director, reformatted the hard disk of the CCTV, deleting evidence of the sexual offences committed by Teo.

These acts obstructed the course of justice as "all footage recorded prior to Nov. 26, 2023, was deleted".

Based on court documents, the footage also documented "multiple other incidents of sexual assault committed by Teo against no fewer than three toddlers over four days."

Sripathy-Shanaz stated that this imposed an additional and entirely unnecessary investigative burden on the police, who had to undertake forensic recovery efforts to retrieve said footage.

"Their actions imperilled and threatened to permanently extinguish the only objective and contemporaneous evidence of Teo’s sexual assaults."

The chairwoman eventually lodged a police report on Dec. 2, 2023.

On Dec. 4, 2023, Teo was arrested, and police raided the preschool and found that the CCTV system had been reformatted.

Women prioritised self-preservation over toddlers' safety

The court noted that their acts were compounded by the women abusing their positions of trust, as senior management of a preschool, and the victims were young children who could not articulate their experiences.

Sripathy-Shanaz stated that the women bore a duty that "transcends a mere moral obligation to act in the best interest of the child".

However, they prioritised self-interest over child protection and desired to avoid adverse consequences from the disclosure of the "preschool's negligence in allowing Teo to interact with children beyond his role as a cook".

"Their actions were plainly aimed not only at concealing Teo’s criminal conduct, but also at suppressing evidence of their own failures."

According to The Straits Times, the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) imposed a S$26,200 fine on the preschool in May 2024 and restricted the enrolment of new pupils.

The ECDA also took action against four management staff and banned three of them from working in the preschool sector.

The principal, 62, who pleaded guilty on Dec. 19, 2025, is expected to be sentenced in March for intentionally omitting information about the sexual assault.

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Top photo from eo Guan Huat/LinkedIn and Canva