Man who diverted telephone calls to police jailed
By Shaffiq Alkhatib | Posted: 08 September 2011 1723 hrs
SINGAPORE: Annoyed that loansharks kept interrupting his sleep, a food distributor diverted their phone calls to the hotline number of the Sengkang Neighbourhood Police Centre (NPC). As a result, an innocent policeman bore the brunt of a loanshark's wrath and got verbally abused with vulgarities on March 27.
32-year-old Ng Leng Huat was sentenced on Thursday to three weeks' jail in what is believed to be the first case of its kind.
Sergeant Ahmad Yazid Mohamed, who was on duty that day, first received an overseas call from the loanshark at around 1.20pm. Sergeant Ahmad identified himself and asked the caller to meet the police for assistance.
However, the caller became agitated and started to hurl vulgarities at him before hanging up. The caller phoned again five minutes later and, this time he revealed Ng's NRIC number to another police officer.
Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Paul Wong said Ng had earlier received countless calls from loansharks, preventing him from sleeping. Because of this, Ng decided to divert the calls to the NPC. DPP Wong pressed for a deterrent sentence.
Ng could have been jailed up to a year or fined a maximum of S$5,000.
-CNA/ac
