Condo resident fined for verbally abusing security guard over parking rules

SINGAPORE — Annoyed that a condominium security guard was constantly asking for his personal details whenever he drove in with a different car, despite knowing he lived there, a used car salesman eventually lost his cool one day and began hurling abuse at the guard.

On Friday (Oct 10), Lim Kian Guan, 48, was fined S$2,500 by a district court judge after he pleaded guilty to one charge of using abusive words towards the security guard, Mr Saravanan Subramanian, a 49-year-old Malaysian.

A second related charge was taken into consideration for sentencing purposes.

State Prosecuting Officer Raj Kishore Rai told the court that the incident happened on Dec 12 last year at around 10.45pm at the Ivory Heights condominium located along Jurong East Street 13.

The court heard that Mr Subramanian was performing his duty as a relief security guard that evening.

When Lim drove into the condominium, Mr Subramanian had approached him to get details for the purposes of filling out an overnight parking slip and issuing a receipt, as per the condominium’s rules.

While Mr Subramanian was filling out the form, Lim became impatient and told him to hurry up.

He eventually got out of the car and started behaving aggressively towards Mr Subramanian, scolding him for “being inflexible and overly strict with the rules”, said Mr Kishore.

During the dispute, Lim began hurling a string of abusive words in Hokkien at Mr Subramanian, and even called him a dog.

The resulting commotion attracted the attention of passersby and the police were eventually called.

In pleading for a lighter sentence for his client, defence lawyer Amarick Gill said that his client had lost his cool that night because it was not the first time he had been approached for such details, despite being a resident of the condominium.

However, due to the nature of his job as a used car salesman, Lim would often drive a different car. As such, he was annoyed with the inflexibility shown towards him with regard to the condominium’s rules.

In any case, Mr Gill said that Lim’s outburst was “regrettable” and that a fine of between S$2,000 and S$2,500 would teach him a “lesson”.

Under the Private Security Industry Act, it is an offence to harass, assault or hurt security workers

Anyone found guilty of intentionally causing harassment, alarm or distress to a security worker can be jailed for up to 12 months, fined up to S$5,000 or both.