'Funky Chef' charged over fatal accident

Melvyn
Lee Shang Bin, 24, was charged in court with causing death of a
motorcyclists and injuring a female passenger in a car on an expressway
in 2009. -- ST PHOTO: WONG KWAI CHOW

A
PRIVATE chef, who used to be one half of a cooking duo called The Funky
Chefs, was charged in court on Monday with causing the death of a
motorcyclist and injuring a female car passenger on an expressway in
2009.




Melvyn Lee Shang Bin, 24, was driving a car
on the right lane of the three-lane East Coast Parkway on Oct 18, 2009
when he is said to have veered towards the left and side-swiped a car
on the centre lane.




The impact allegedly caused
his car to veer towards the right, over the central divider and onto
the other side of the expressway going in the opposite direction,
hitting motorcyclist Muhammad Farhan Kassim, 26, and causing his death.




He
is also said to have caused hurt to Madam Tan Sien Keam, 43, who was
the front-seat passenger of the car he side-swiped, in a negligent act
that endangered her life and personal safety.




Lee
started The Funky Chefs in 2008 with a partner, aiming to prepare
French and Italian fare for people in their homes. His partner left the
business last year to start his own restaurant.




Lee
had built up a regular clientele and starred in TV programmes such as
food and travel series The Accidental Chef, which premiered on Channel
NewsAsia last October.

Three Mile Island accident History

The Three Mile Island accident was a partial core meltdown in Unit 2 (a pressurized water reactor manufactured byBabcock & Wilcox) of the Three Mile Island NuclearGenerating Station in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania near Harrisburg in 1979. The plant was owned and operated by General Public Utilities and the Metropolitan Edison Co. It was the most significant accident in the history of the American commercial nuclear power generating industry, resulting in the release of up to 481 PBq (13 million curies) of radioactive gases, but less than 740 GBq (20 curies) of the particularlydangerous iodine-131.
The accident began at 4 a.m. on Wednesday, March 28, 1979, with failures in the non-nuclear secondary system, followed by a stuck-open pilot-operated relief valve (PORV) in the primary system, which allowed large amounts of nuclearreactor coolant to escape.