Man who fell asleep while driving lorry causing it to overturn jailed 5 months and fined $800
Muhammad Taufiq Jasmi was jailed for five months and fined $800.PHOTO: SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
Published Feb 1, 2016, 1:53 pm SGT
Updated Feb 1, 2016, 3:05 pm
Amir Hussain
SINGAPORE - A 24-year-old man was jailed for five months and fined $800 last Friday (Jan 29) for a series of traffic-related offences. He will also be disqualified from driving for 18 months after his release from prison.
Muhammad Taufiq Jasmi pleaded guilty to four charges: driving without due care and attention, driving under disqualification, theft of a vehicle and theft.
Another two counts of driving without insurance and a charge of driving under disqualification were taken into consideration during sentencing.
A district court heard that Taufiq was driving his employer's lorry along Admiralty Road West at about 8am on May 31 last year when he fell asleep.
The lorry mounted a kerb and collided into a lamp post. The lamp post uprooted and the lorry overturned.
At the time, Taufiq had been disqualified from driving, pending a court case in relation to a road traffic offence.
While undergoing investigations in relation to the traffic accident, he also went on to steal a lorry.
On June 19 that year, at about 2.30pm, Taufiq was walking with two friends to a bus stop when he saw a lorry with its keys in the ignition, parked unattended at the loading bay at Block 477, Sembawang Drive.
The driver of the vehicle had left it there before going to a unit of the block to deliver furniture with two workers.
Taufiq and his friends, Muhammad Iskandar Sa'at and Nurulhuda Ismail, decided to steal the lorry. He went to the driver's seat, while the duo sat in the front passenger seat.
The lorry was later abandoned at Woodlands Industrial Park, after Taufiq stole a CashCard left in its in-vehicle unit.
While Iskandar was in police custody in relation to the theft of the lorry the next day, he was escorted to Khoo Teck Puat hospital in Yishun.
A struggle ensued after he allegedly tried to escape while inside a private room in the hospital at about 7pm.
He purportedly discharged three rounds from a .38-calibre Taurus revolver with intent to injure a policeman. He had allegedly also hit the officer multiple times with a T-baton and a metal pole, used for securing an intravenous drip.
For driving without due care and attention, Taufiq could have been jailed for six months and fined $1,000. He could have been jailed for three years and fined $10,000 for driving under disqualification.
For stealing the lorry, he could have been jailed for seven years and fined. He could have been jailed for three years and fined for stealing the CashCard.
Iskandar was charged in June last year under the Arms Offences Act and could face the death penalty. His case is before the courts.
