SINGAPORE — A man with a fetish for uniforms stole the jacket of a traffic police officer while he was attending to a traffic accident.

He also filched a bag from a parked police car while the officer was attending to a case.

Lam Seng Yip, 51, pleaded guilty to two counts of theft on Tuesday (Dec 27).

The court heard that a traffic police officer was attending to an accident at the cross junction of Buangkok Green Road and Yio Chu Kang Road on Sep 20, 2019.

He parked his motorcycle along the road in front of Block 965, Hougang Avenue 9, and placed his traffic police jacket on top of his motorbike.

Lam was driving by when he saw the motorcycle and the unattended jacket. He returned to the accident scene about half an hour later and stopped his car along a nearby road.

He took the jacket, which was worth about S$140 and had a name tag and a sergeant rank epaulette.

The traffic police officer spotted Lam behaving suspiciously at the motorcycle and gave chase.

Lam ran away, got into his vehicle and drove off with the jacket. He later removed the name tag, rank and insignia from the jacket and threw them away.

Lam was arrested on Sep 20, 2019, at a loading and unloading bay of an HDB block in Hougang. The jacket was seized from him.

On Jun 24, 2022, another police officer drove her police fast response car to a car park in front of Block 171, Woodlands Street 11, to respond to a case.

Lam came across the vehicle and noticed that the windows were wound down. There was a ground response force bag in the back seat.

Lam opened the door, took the bag, and ran as far as he could. He then booked a Grab car and went home, where he opened the bag to check its contents.

The bag contained items worth more than S$380, including a wallet, a driving licence, credit cards, a police traffic wand, a police cap, a police raincoat, a police vest and a pair of reflective gloves.

Lam was arrested the next day at his home, where the stolen items were recovered.

According to a report from the Institute of Mental Health, Lam was first seen at IMH in December 2018 and was diagnosed with "sadomasochistic and fetishistic interests amounting to a paraphilic disorder".

His fetishistic interest was mainly in the uniforms of uniformed services such as the military or police, the court heard.

The judge called for a report assessing Lam's suitability for a mandatory treatment order and adjourned sentencing to February.

The penalties for theft are a jail term of up to three years, a fine, or both.