Posted: 11 March 2007 at 3:05pm | IP Logged

The Straits Times, Tuesday March 6, 2007

Maid's lover hid on eight-floor ledge for five hours

Stunned when her employers returned home from a Sunday outing earlier than expected, an Indonesian maid asked her visiting boyfriend to hide on the ledge outside the eight-floor apartment where she worked.

The man, a foreign worker in his 20s, stayed perched out there on the 30-cm wide ledge - for the next five hours.  All this while his girlfriend went about her chores, pretending nothing was amiss.

His precarious hiding place came to light only after neighbours came knocking on the family's door to tell them that someone was "attempting suicide" from the apartment .

Yesterday, the maid's employer, property agent Philip Chan, 43, told The Straits Times: "I got such a shock when i went to the kitchen and saw the man under the kitchen window.  He was looking very tired.

"It was so dangerous.  He could have fallen and died.  Luckily it wasn't raining."

Mr. Chan and his neighbour helped to pull him back into safety of the apartment.

The incident hapenned on Sunday at Block 1, Normanton Park, a private estate near Kent Ridge Park.

The day began with Mr. and Mrs. Chan and their two sons, aged 15 and 12, leaving for church at 8.30am - though they did not have a clue about what had gone on while they were out.

Said Mr. Chan: "She acted normally and even cooked us lunch.  On hindsight, it now makes sense why she did not answer the doorbell and open the door for us when we came home."

When the maid was questioned, she lied and said she was in the toilet with stomach ache.

She lied too, when Mr. Chan asked her who the man on the ledge was.  At first, she denied knowing the man.  It was only later that she admitted that he was her boyfriend and that they had known each other for three years.

The woman was sent back to the maid agency, while her boyfriend was given a warning by the police.