HE WAS married, with three grown-up children.

But that didn’t stop Keh Teck Bok, 60, from going after a Chinese national whom he met while on tour in China.

Keh got her pregnant, and married her in her hometown in Hunan province.

Then, five years later, history repeated itself.

This time, it was a Filipino maid who was working here for his friend.

She got pregnant, so he married her in the Philippines.

By that time, Keh was divorced from his first wife, a Singaporean. But he was still married to his China wife.

His bigamous ways were discovered when he applied for his China wife to remain in Singapore.

On 25 Sep, the taxi driver was sentenced to one day in jail and fined $5,000 for marrying his China wife while still married to his Singaporean wife.

Another bigamy charge – marrying his Filipino wife while married to his China wife – was taken into consideration.

But he spent five days in jail and was released only after his elder son from his first marriage paid the fine for him.

Under the law, a married person can be convicted of bigamy if he or she marries again here or elsewhere.

Keh told The New Paper in Mandarin: “I know it’s against the law to commit bigamy. “But I liked all three women when I married them.”

The balding, bespectacled man said he had no intention of lying to his two mistresses.

“I just didn’t know how to tell them that I was a married man. But they all found out in the end.”

Of the three women, he felt the most apologetic towards his first wife.

“I’ve let her down and broken up our family,” he said.

They were divorced in 2002 and he is no longer in contact with her.

He has also lost touch with his Filipino wife.

His only wish is to get approval for his China wife, Madam Zhang Lanying, 35, a seamstress, to be allowed to remain here so that they can be reunited.

The court heard that Keh had applied for Madam Zhang to stay here as his spouse a few years ago.

It was while processing Keh’s application that the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) found out about the bigamy.

Keh married his first wife, Madam Oh Im, in 1972. They have three children who are now in their 30s.

Madam Oh found out about her husband’s affair with Madam Zhang in 1997.

But she endured Keh’s infidelity as she wanted to give him a second chance.

The couple were also in the process of selling their matrimonial flat and she didn’t want Keh to create further problems.

A year later, Keh moved out to be with Madam Zhang, who was then in her 20s.

He had befriended her while touring China with his colleagues in 1997.

They exchanged contact numbers and began dating.

Their relationship was sustained by long-distance phone calls and Keh’s frequent visits to China.

When Madam Zhang got pregnant, they got married in her hometown, on 14 May 1998. Keh filed for divorce with Madam Oh the same year.

Two years ago, Madam Zhang and her son, now 9, moved to Singapore so he could study here.

When Keh tried to apply for her to remain in Singapore, his bigamy was discovered.

During the investigations, Keh was also found to have married Ms Mary Jane Ubando Tamayo, a Filipino, on 28 May 2003 in the Philippines.

Keh said he got to know Ms Tamayo here when she was working as a maid for his friend. She was in her early 20s then.

“She didn’t know how to do housework when she first came and I found her pitiful,” he said. “So I tried to help her as much as I could.”

Over time, he fell for her.

Keh said that Ms Tamayo wanted to return to Philippines, so he gave her some money to do so.

He added: “Then, she was pregnant with my child and asked me to marry her so that she wouldn’t be mocked.

“I was trying to help her when I married her in the Philippines. To be honest, I don’t even know how old my son is.”

He said he had seen their son only once, when he was still a baby.

“I’ve lost all contact with her. I don’t know what they are doing now,” he said.

In his mitigation, Keh’s lawyer, Mr Gurdaib Singh, said that Keh deeply regretted his actions.

Said Mr Singh: “It was in good faith to bring his China wife to stay here that he approached the authorities for help.

“He didn’t realise the flip side.”

The court heard that Madam Zhang is barred from entering Singapore as a result of Keh’s present offences.

For bigamy, Keh could have been jailed seven years and fined.

This article was first published in The New Paper.