BESIEGED beauty queen Ris Low Yi Min has given up the title of Miss Singapore World 2009. In a text message to The New Paper, Ris confirmed she had decided to give up her title, but declined to comment on her decision.
Over the last few weeks, she had faced mounting pressure from members of the public calling for her to be stripped of her crown – first over her poor diction, and later when a conviction for credit card fraud came to light.
Then, anonymous calls and e-mails began trickling in to The New Paper, with salacious details allegedly about her pre-pageant life, which Ris neither confirmed nor denied when we asked her.
Meanwhile, the organisers of the Miss Singapore World pageant, ERM World Marketing (ERM), said it would be interviewing a new winner to represent Singapore at the Miss World 2009 pageant in South Africa in December.
“We will announce a new representative shortly,” an ERM spokesman said. The spokesman added that organisers had met Ris’ parents, who agreed to their daughter resigning from the pageant.
“We feel this is in the best interest (of) the Miss Singapore World Pageant and Singapore at large,” the ERM spokesman said.
The spokesman added that organisers have no way of checking if a contestant has a criminal record or is suffering from depression.
A lawyer, who declined to be named, said individual criminal records are not publicly available, but prospective employers can ask for this information from the police.
Determined
Said the ERM spokesman: “Ris Low was determined, well-behaved and performed well throughout the two-month competition and even went on to win eight special awards.
“This is not an easy task to accomplish from a group of 22 contestants.”
Responding to public criticism of her spoken English, the spokesman said the widely-circulated video interview with Ris “was presented in a way to ridicule her”, and added that she had performed well in the interview segment of the Miss Singapore World finals on 31 Jul.
The spokesman added: “As (she is) a teenage offender, we feel sorry for her circumstances but we cannot compromise on our contest rules and the image of the Miss Singapore World Pageant.”
Terms and conditions
In the terms and conditions specified on the Miss Singapore World website, pageant contestants must not have been charged or convicted in any court of law in any country, must not be a fugitive, or be wanted by any law enforcement agency.
Even though Ris has pulled out of the pageant, her woes may not be over.
Lawyer Anthony Soh told The New Paper that the pageant organisers could potentially take legal action against her if she had signed a contract agreeing to abide by the terms and conditions.
Said Mr Soh: “If these terms are in the contract, then what (she) did could be a breach of contract.”
He added that even if there was no contractual agreement between her and the pageant organisers, the organisers could argue that she had been fraudulent by misrepresenting herself.
Her eligibility for the international pageant had been subject to debate – especially because it was uncertain as to whether her past offences constituted a criminal record.
Clarifying this, a spokesman for the Attorney-General’s Chambers told The New Paper that under Section 11 of the Probation of Offenders Act, if a convicted person is put on probation for a certain period and completes it without breaching any requirement of the probation order, he or she would not have a criminal record.
A spokesman for Miss World Limited said it would not comment on the eligibility of a contestant with a prior conviction, saying only that it would abide by the decision of the Miss Singapore World organisers.
This article was first published in The New Paper .
