On May 19, 2025, former Mediacorp actor Ian Fang was sentenced to 40 months in jail after pleading guilty to sexual offences with a 15-year-old girl, in a case that stunned Singapore's entertainment industry. The 35-year-old pleaded guilty to three charges of sexual penetration of a minor, with three similar charges taken into consideration for sentencing, along with one count each of obstructing the course of justice and stalking.
The court heard that Fang had met the victim, a student, at an entertainment event in May 2024, when she was 15 and he was 34. They exchanged contact details and communicated almost daily, and she regarded him as her boyfriend. Between June and July 2024, he had sex with her on nine occasions at his home, a hotel and a hospital, fully aware of her age. On five of those occasions the sex was unprotected, and he had refused to use a condom even when she asked. At the time, Fang was working as an acting teacher at a modelling school for children aged four to 14. He also instructed the girl to keep the relationship secret, and later tried to pressure her not to press charges, which formed the basis of the harassment and obstruction charges.
The case had initially been shrouded in secrecy because of a gag order protecting the victim's identity, which also shielded Fang. But the victim and her family asked for his identity to be revealed, saying she felt emotionally stronger and was willing to accept the risks. District Judge Eddy Tham lifted the gag order on Fang's name, ruling that open justice and the wishes of the victim and her family outweighed the defence's objections. The victim herself cannot be named.
Fang, who was born in Shanghai and moved to Singapore in 2002 at the age of 13, had been a full-time Mediacorp actor for 12 years, from 2011 to 2023. He began serving his sentence on June 16, 2025. In a final blow, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority revoked his permanent resident status in February of the following year, announcing that he would be deported and barred from re-entering Singapore upon his release. His case became a grim reminder of how the power imbalance between a celebrity and a young fan can be exploited, and of the courts' willingness to name offenders when victims demand accountability.
The sentencing hearing itself was a sombre affair. Fang appeared in the State Courts dressed in a black T-shirt, face mask and wired-rimmed glasses, solemn as his charges were read. His lawyer had argued against lifting the gag order on his identity, warning that at least 30 people had seen the pair together at public events and that even though the victim described herself as emotionally stronger, no one could know how strong she would need to be to face the consequences. The prosecution countered that the case was not about that small circle, that steps had been taken to protect the victim, and that open justice mattered. District Judge Eddy Tham agreed that there was a difference between protecting the victim and shielding the offender, and Fang's name was released while the victim's identity remained protected by court order. He was allowed out on S$30,000 bail before beginning his sentence on June 16, 2025.