Man jailed for inserting joss stick and grass root in flat gate lock, hitting sister

SINGAPORE — A former car dealer, not long out of prison, was upset that his acquaintance had allegedly not repaid a debt for more than a decade, so he prevented the man from leaving his flat by locking his gate with a bicycle lock.

Then, several days later, Lee Huat Lai stuck a joss stick and the root of a grass into the gate lock keyhole with the same objective.

He also discarded some of his victim’s shoes, that were placed outside the flat, in a fit of anger.

On Thursday (May 30), Lee was sentenced to one month and one week behind bars and fined S$2,000 for his actions. District Judge Ng Peng Hong added 211 days to his sentence, as Lee had breached his remission order when committing his offences.

The 50-year-old pleaded guilty in the State Courts to three charges of unlawful stalking, causing hurt and illegal remote gambling, with another three similar charges taken into consideration for sentencing.

Lee has a long criminal history dating back to the 1980s, including jail time and fines for offences including cheating, theft, drugs and disorderly behaviour, Deputy Public Prosecutor Mansoor Amir told the court.

The court heard that shortly after Lee got out of prison in May last year, he re-offended by gambling online on an illegal website.

Lee told his former prison cellmate Chng Min Sheng, who was also an illegal bookmaker, that he wanted to try online gambling as he was facing some financial difficulties. The other man told Lee about the website and gave him a username and password.

Chng also taught Lee how to gamble on the website using his mobile phone.

Between June 9 and 14, 2018, he gambled away S$10,000 in credits that Chng gave him while playing baccarat online. However, he was able to repay Chng only S$8,600.

When Chng kept harassing him to return him the remaining S$1,400, Lee decided to lodge a police report against him. The police then arrested Lee for unlawful remote gambling.

He was released on bail, but court documents showed that he went on to make false 999 calls twice. Both times, he alleged that a group of men was about to start fighting.

Towards the end of 2018, he harassed his acquaintance, 51-year-old Chew Khiu Suan, over the unpaid debt. It was not stated how they knew each other.

On Nov 23 and Nov 26, he locked the gate of Chew’s flat with a blue bicycle lock.

On Dec 1, he stuffed a joss stick into the keyhole of the gate lock, then did the same thing with a grass root a week later. Because of that, Mr Chew and his flatmate were unable to unlock the lock or leave the flat.

Lee also threw away two pairs of shoes and the right shoe of another pair placed outside the flat.

Finally, on Jan 11 this year, he was once again out on bail for harassing Chew when he assaulted his younger sister over a dispute. He confronted her during the argument and elbowed her face.

Lee’s lawyer Sim Cher Kwang, who was assigned to him through the Criminal Legal Aid Scheme, told the court that his client wants to reconcile with his sister and apologise to her.

For unlawful stalking, Lee could have been jailed up to a year and fined up to S$5,000. For illegal remote gambling, he could have been jailed up to six months and fined up to S$5,000.

For causing hurt, he could have been jailed up to two years and fined up to S$5,000.