Friday, January 20, 2012

Man gets 12 months for stealing $32 to buy mummy food

I was made aware by Lucky Tan's blog regarding a 12 months jail term was sentenced to an unemployed man for stealing -- $32. AsiaOne reports. A jobless man was sentenced to one year in jail today after he had stolen $32 from a mosque.

......40-year-old Noraizam Abdullah pleaded guilty last month to stealing the money to buy food for himself and his wheelchair-bound mother.

He also told investigators that he had stolen the money out of desperation as he was not able to get help from the mosque.
......
The Straits Times report also added that Noraizam had served six jail terms since 1997, which includes five years of corrective training in 2002.

The white man does not get jail term here even for more severe theft
Lucky's blog also contains other interesting cases. The son of M1 ex-CEO was merely fined by stealing $13,000. This amount is 406 times greater than what Noraizam Abdullah has stolen.

The son of former MobileOne chief executive was fined a total of $23,000 on Friday for theft from his boss and forgery.

Briton Alexander Montefiore, 28, a former sales trader of Cantor Fitzgerald, a financial services company, stole a total of $13,000 from its managing director, Mr William Louis Selig, using his DBS debit card.

For Singaporeans that are rich or well-connected or those from elite schools, another set of law applies to them as well
Our judicial system is designed in such a way that the elites get off hook for whatever felon they committed.  This is done in several ways, and I will list some below.
  • A psychiatrist will jump out to testify that the accused is acting involuntarily due to his mental conditions, such as depression, kleptomania, or even sex addiction...etc
  • The accused's parents, relatives, pastor (from rich church), elite school ex-teachers, friends (obviously rich and well-connected), and all kinds of clowns will come forward to speak of the cherished memories with that accused, and to prop up the accused with a list of fantastic past testimonials.

For certain serial thief, the doctors invented an arcane jargon call "kleptomaniac" to get them off hook. One day, if some rich kids choose to murder one after another, I am 1000% sure doctors will come out with something like "murder-maniac". The rich murderer walk free.

However, if you are poor, come from a bad school, I doubt you get the privilege of "kleptomaniac" classification. You are just a rogue if you steal.

The femme fatale



Merely, 6 months back, there is a case in court whereby a certain Goh Lee Yin, mitigating herself with kleptomania by several doctors. She is from a rather humble background. She did well at school, scoring a PSLE aggregate of 257. She attended CHIJ St Nicholas Girls' School, Anglo-Chinese Junior College and Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

The total amount of theft is more than $9000. She committed theft repeatedly despite probations and many appearance in court, since 2005. Eventually, she was given 6 weeks for all these 6 months ago. If she is a guy and from a bad school, I seriously doubt whether the judges would have let her off lightly in so many occasions.

The followings are from AsiaOneShoplifting history

April 27, 2005: Stole an $83 skirt from a Ngee Ann City boutique.

May 12, 2005: Stole an $80 haversack, 167 hangers, two bottles of wine, two bottles of lotion, one towel, two bottles of wine cooler, worth about $233, from two stores in Bishan.

May 16, 2005: Stole 18 boxes of shaving cartridges, one razor, eight packets of insoles, one skin file and two boxes of dental floss worth some $306 from a Thomson Road supermarket.

Stole body shaving system valued at $90 from a department store in Orchard Road.

Stole four bottles of sun care lotion, each valued at $45, from a department store at Paragon shopping centre.

August 2005: Jailed 21/2 months by district court. Appealed against sentence.

Oct 15, 2005: Stole four pairs of earrings valued at $70 in total from a department store at Wisma Atria.

November 2005: On appeal, jail term set aside by then Chief Justice Yong Pung How. Two years' probation, with stringent conditions, was ordered.

Nov 20, 2006: Stole $375 wristlet clutch bag from Coach boutique at Raffles City Shopping Centre.

Stole Louis Vuitton denim handbag valued at $1,960 from LV boutique at Raffles Hotel.

When caught, she was also found with a $143 blouse, a $39 handbag and a $56 handbag, for which she was charged with fraudulent possession.

May 2007: Fined $8,000 and jailed one day by district court. Prosecution appeals.

Nov 29, 2007: Appeal dismissed. Further 18 months probation ordered for breaching the original probation order.

February and December 2010: Stole a $4,790 Chanel bag, $3,200 Gucci dress and $610 Emporio Armani sweater.

May this year: Pleaded guilty to two shoplifting charges, with one similar charge taken into consideration. June 25

Charged with stealing items such as women's magazines, shower cream, canned fruit and jelly powder - totalling $83 - while out on bail.

July 22: Jailed six weeks and fined $4,000 by district court.


The reputedly harsh judicial system only targets the poor. For a certain group of people, Singapore's law is one of the kindest and most gentle in the whole world.

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