SINGAPORE – All ActiveSG indoor sport halls will be closed for a day on Sunday (June 28) as a “time-out” and “to ensure that all users of ActiveSG’s indoor sport halls understand the rules and spirit of the safe management measures”, said Sport Singapore (SportSG) on Saturday (June 27).

This, after it was alerted to a positive Covid-19 case who had played badminton at the ActiveSG Jurong East Indoor Sport Hall on Monday (June 22) and had flouted SportSG’s safe management measures while doing so. This hall will be closed from Saturday till Sunday “for thorough disinfection and cleaning, and a review of the safe management measures in place”.

SportSG said it hoped that with the temporary closure of all its halls, “all users of our facilities will take this time to reflect on the importance of exercising individual responsibility for the collective good, so that we can overcome Covid-19, together”.

The national sports agency also warned that it would take action against errant users, and said it would implement new measures to ensure that users abide by the rules at all its indoor sport facilities.

SportSG noted in a statement that preliminary investigations found that the positive case and a large badminton social group that he played with had breached the safe management measures and rules put in place by SportSG.

The badminton social group had between them booked up to six badminton courts from 9am to noon that day.

During the sessions, there was cross-mixing of players across multiple courts, despite the physical partitions and clear rules that restrict the number of players on a court to four. Mingling with players on other courts is also not allowed. 

These rules that prohibit inter-group mixing are in force for all sports and not just badminton. They were introduced on June 19, the day sports facilities were given the green light to reopen following the easing of circuit breaker measures.

The statement said: “SportSG views any violation of safe management measures very seriously as they compromise the entire national effort to minimise the risk of community transmission.

“SportSG is investigating this incident and will take strong action against the individual and the other players who have infringed the regulations, including barring them from the use of ActiveSG facilities henceforth.”

Among the new measures it will implement to ensure users adhere to the rules are the issuing of coloured wrist bands to be worn by players to identify different groups for each badminton court and to remind players to act responsibly. 

It added that SportSG will be scrutinising badminton social groups who plan to congregate in a large group at any venue. Individuals involved with such groups, as well as those who play and mix across different courts, will have their bookings cancelled and/or ejected from the indoor sport hall, as well as barred from the future use of ActiveSG facilities.

SportSG chief executive officer Lim Teck Yin said: “It is very disappointing that some members of the public had not adhered to the rules and circumvented the measures that were put in place by SportSG.

“Such irresponsible behaviour will jeopardise everyone’s efforts to minimise Covid-19 transmission within the community. SportSG will enhance its measures and enforcement to stop such irresponsible behaviour.

“We hope that this ‘time-out’ helps all of us to reflect on how we should work together. As much as we are excited to catch up with our friends and to keep active, we must do the right thing and abide by the rules and the spirit behind them. This way, we can ensure that our sport facilities can remain open, so that the community can continue to participate in sport and stay healthy.”

Sports facilities resumed operations from June 19, which marked the start of the second phase of Singapore’s reopening.

The Singapore Badminton Association also issued a statement urging the fraternity to comply with the regulations. It said it was “disappointed by the irresponsible behaviour of the individual (and other individuals) involved in this incident”. 

It added: “SBA had earlier outlined a set of safe management measures specific to the badminton fraternity in accordance with SportSG’s advisory on safe return to sports in Phase 2. We strongly urge all in the badminton community to show true sportsmanship in adhering strictly to the measures in place. This is about minimising the risk of community spread. Let’s be responsible to our loved ones and the community. Their safety and well-being is our priority.”

When contacted, the organiser of the session said the group did not intend to breach the safe management rules and did so only “because we did not understand the inter-mingling rule properly and the ActiveSG staff present did not inform us”.

He added the group would cease organising such sessions “until the rules are clear to everyone”. He also revealed 29 people were at the Monday session, including himself. 

While disappointed, members of the badminton community and users of the ActiveSG indoor sport halls said they understood the reasons for the one-day closure.

Badminton coach Danny Aw, who had to cancel a coaching session at the Choa Chu Kang sport hall on Sunday, said: “The closure is for a day and it’s for the safety of those using the hall, so this can reassure (users) and clearer safety measures can be issued, and the place can be disinfected as well.”

The 39-year-old, who would have made between $90 to $120 for his scheduled two-hour session, added: “Income will definitely be affected, but it’s fair because we don’t want another cluster to form and harm everyone including my students, myself and our families.”

IT engineer Yong Hon Chong, who used to play badminton regularly before sports facilities were shut due to the coronavirus, felt there was “no choice” but to close the venues this weekend.

The 45-year-old is resuming his weekly game at the Toa Payoh Sport Hall with four friends next Saturday as he could not secure bookings this week due to high demand.

“It’s necessary and we have to live with it. There’s a risk and that’s why (sports facilities) had to be closed for such a long time, and (a positive Covid-19 case) still happened even after they opened,” he added. “Hopefully the closure doesn’t extend till next week. We’ll definitely check the guidelines before playing so that we are clear.”

Of the 18 ActiveSG indoor sport halls, only 11 are open. 

Badminton courts are ActiveSG’s most popular sports facilities – there were over 810,000 badminton court bookings last year, the highest in comparison to all other sports and facilities. Over 90 per cent of about 3,000 slots for public badminton courts from June 19-21 were taken up when sports facilities reopened on June 19.

SportSG’s advisory, issued on June 17, states that the use of sports facilities are subject to the following safe management measures:

(1) individuals to maintain a safe distance while exercising

(2) a rule of maximum five persons in group activities with no mixing between groups

(3) a minimum safe distance of 3m between groups

(4) facility capacity limited according to its gross floor area based on 10 sq m per person or 50 persons, whichever is lower. In the case of ActiveSG badminton courts, the maximum number of people allowed is capped at four per court. Cross-mixing of groups is not allowed.

King County prosecutors have filed a second-degree rape charge against onetime Seattle professional indoor-soccer team owner and player Dion Earl in a decade-old case initially closed by Kirkland police for insufficient evidence.

The case was reopened in November 2017 and assigned to a different Kirkland detective after Earl, 47, was arrested the previous month in Arizona on sexual-assault charges connected to separate incidents involving two female babysitters, ages 18 and 21, who looked after his children. Earl has long maintained residences in Mesa, Arizona, and Kent and frequently traveled between both on business.

The rape charge, filed Monday in King County Superior Court, stems from an alleged September 2009 attack on a massage-parlor worker in Kirkland. Earl is to be arraigned June 24 but is not expected to attend the hearing as he remains jailed in Arizona.

His 2017 arrest in Arizona raised lingering questions about authorities’ failure to charge Earl in King County, where the former Seattle Pacific University soccer star and Seattle Sea Dogs indoor player had been the subject of two sexual-assault probes and myriad police calls, protection orders and investigations.

O.D. Harris, father of the 18-year-old babysitter in the Arizona case, said last year his daughter might never have been abused had Earl been prosecuted in Washington.

“It really makes me sad that our justice system has failed all these people all of these years,’’ Harris said.

Earl had owned the Kent-based Impact expansion team in the fledgling Major Arena Soccer League (MASL) in 2014, but 22 of his players walked out on him shortly after two members of the squad’s all-female dance team complained to police Earl had sexually assaulted them.

That case was also dropped by the King County Sheriff’s Office for a lack of evidence, though the two dancers and four other former team staffers later won nearly $1 million in damages and court fees from Earl in a lawsuit alleging sexual assault, harassment and unfair treatment by him.

Former Impact office manager Amy David, one of the plaintiffs in the case, has said Earl took an uncanny interest in the squad’s dance team. She’s long insisted the sexual-assault allegations by the two dance-team members should have been investigated more aggressively given Earl’s history with women and the earlier rape investigation.

Since David’s 2014 ordeal, in which she says she resigned from the Impact following “hostile’’ treatment by Earl when she tried to confront him about his behavior toward staffers and the dancers, she has been in contact with the alleged victim in the 2009 Kirkland rape case and tried to support her.

She’s thankful Kirkland police and prosecutors took a second look.

“His victim finally has a voice and can hopefully begin to move forward in her healing process after waiting almost a decade for this to come,’’ David said Monday.

But David added: “If he had been charged in 2009, maybe there would not have been so many more victims and I would never have gone to work for him.’’

While in custody in Arizona, Earl was also indicted in April 2018 on federal charges of orchestrating a $1.1 million tax fraud scheme by overstating mortgage-interest payments and his income from various business operations — including the Impact — between 2008 and 2014. Federal prosecutors have stayed proceedings in that case pending the outcome of Earl’s sexual-assault case in Arizona.

Earl was stripped of his soccer franchise by the MASL shortly after a Seattle Times story in December 2014 reported the league’s background checks had failed to turn up red flags, including five restraining orders taken out against him by Seattle-area women for various forms of harassment from 1998 through 2014.

An ex-girlfriend claimed Earl stalked her and broke into her home, standing over her while she and her children slept. Another, who had dated Earl at SPU, claimed he had sent threatening emails to her and her family.

In 1999, Earl was convicted of nonfelony assault in an argument with his sister, but the conviction was dismissed after court-ordered counseling. And a 2003 series in The Seattle Times, “Coaches who Prey,’’ also detailed how Earl lost a high-school coaching job in Bellevue in 1998 after allegedly asking a 17-year-old cheerleader on a date.

After the 2009 Kirkland case was reopened and assigned to Detective Mark Brown, he obtained a search warrant for Earl’s DNA, which was executed by Mesa police while he remained in their custody. Swabs of the DNA were sent to the Washington State Police Crime Laboratory for comparison with fluid initially discovered on underwear submitted by the alleged massage-parlor victim in 2009 that she said she was wearing that night.

Based on the results, court documents state there is probable cause to criminally charge Earl with rape.

The court documents do not address why Earl is being charged now, when Kirkland police had that evidence more than nine years ago and declined to seek a DNA match.

At the time, the first Kirkland police detective, Cristina Gilland, spoke to Earl by phone. She said Earl initially denied any sexual contact with the massage-parlor worker other than letting her fondle him. Then, she added, he later provided a written statement in which he claimed they’d had consensual intercourse for money and she’d tried to extort him for more than the agreed-upon price.

Gilland said Earl told her he was embarrassed about the situation because he had a girlfriend and they were expecting a child together. Though he’d initially agreed to give his DNA, Gilland said, Earl offered only the written statement and had hired an attorney.

A police report shows she did not make any further attempts to acquire Earl’s DNA, figuring it would only prove intercourse and not rape. The case then sat dormant for more than four years, until The Seattle Times story published in 2014 mentioned the unsolved rape investigation as part of a broader story outlining Earl’s history with women.

Kirkland police were asked at the time about their investigation of Earl and the fact it lacked any official conclusion. They cited a routine shift rotation by officers as a reason for the oversight. Gilland was subsequently asked to provide a conclusion and did, stating there wasn’t enough evidence to obtain a conviction.

But then, court documents now show, the case was reopened after the alleged 2009 victim went to Kirkland police in November 2017 — three weeks after Earl’s arrest in Arizona — asking them to take another look.

She told police, as she had in 2009, that she had been raped by a client during an after-hours appointment at a Kirkland establishment raided by police for prostitution earlier that year. The woman said she did not know the name of her alleged assailant because the massage parlor’s owner had booked the appointment and would not divulge it to her.

She alleged that her assailant claimed to be a police officer and said that he would have her arrested for prostitution if she did not grant him sexual favors.

The case was somewhat complicated when rape kit evidence taken from the woman at Valley Medical Center a day after the alleged assault was discarded. The woman had waited two weeks before reporting the rape to police, by which time the rape kit was discarded per hospital policy for evidence not collected within 72 hours.

That policy was changed to a 90-day window in 2015.

But a sketch, that current court documents state “very strongly resembled Earl,” was drawn in November 2009, based on a description given by the woman.

She also at that time provided Gilland two pairs of underwear and cotton athletic pants worn by her that night as well as a washcloth she’d used after the alleged assault and towels used by her assailant.

A few months later, in February 2010, the woman told Gilland some acquaintances in the soccer community suggested Earl might be her assailant. She identified Earl in a subsequent photo lineup assembled by Gilland that included Earl’s drivers-license picture.

In March 2010, the state crime lab identified semen on one of the pairs of underwear and stated: “If references are submitted, comparisons can be made to this profile.”

But another 7 1/2  years would go by before that comparison was attempted.