71-year-old man jailed for smearing faeces on neighbour's letter box
A 71-year-old lorry attendant’s relationship with his neighbour was so hostile that he was jailed five months for assaulting the latter.
But when released on bail pending an appeal against the prison term, the elderly man smeared faeces all over his neighbour’s letter box.
At the State Courts on Friday (2 November), Sim Ann Heng was jailed for another two weeks after he pleaded guilty to two charges of intentional harassment under the Protection from Harassment Act.
Previous disputes over staring incidents
The court heard that Sim lived on the 12th floor of a HDB block in Commonwealth Avenue, and had disputes with retiree Tan Yam Chwee, 67, who lived on the 14th floor of the same block over staring incidents. Sim also suspected that the latter was bad mouthing him to neighbours.
On 19 June, Sim was jailed for five months for causing hurt to Tan. The details of this offence were not elaborated in court on Friday. Sim filed an appeal against sentence and was released on bail.
Three weeks later, at about 7.50am on 11 July, Tan saw faeces smeared all over his letter box. Town council workers cleaned up the mess without any fee, and Tan called the police at about 12.30pm.
Following the incident, the police installed a camera on the ground floor of the HDB block, facing the letter box area. At about 1.10am on 15 July, a policeman on patrol saw Sim writing something on a letter box.
Pasted mock obituary of neighbour
Sim had obtained a newspaper obituary photo of a man, with the printed words “Departed on 5th July 2019”. He then wrote the misspelt name of his neighbour, “YAM CHEE”, on the top of the cut-out and pasted it right above Tan’s letter box. Sim also cut out the word “OBITUARIES” from the newspaper and pasted it on the opening flap of Tan’s letter box.
Policemen found Sim in the area shortly after and he admitted to his misdeed. State Prosecutor Lam Peng Choy said that Sim “believed that (Tan) had said bad things about him in the past and he was unhappy about it”.
Jail term to be served after earlier sentence
On 13 August, Sim withdrew his appeal against his first sentence and started serving his five-month jail term for assault.
He will serve his two-week prison term for harassment once the earlier sentence has been completed.
For each intentional harassment charge, Sim could have been fined up to $5,000 and jailed up to 6 months.
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