13/04/2023
Jail for Malaysian man who kept inching car forward against auxiliary policeman who stopped him at Woodlands Checkpoint
SINGAPORE — Furious that an auxiliary police officer stopped his car when he was already running late, a man tried to get on his way by inching his car repeatedly towards said officer, alarming him.
Mohd Shahrir Johari pleaded guilty on Thursday (April 13) to one charge of acting rashly or negligently, which could endanger someone’s life or personal safety.
Senior District Judge Bala Reddy sentenced Shahrir to four months’ imprisonment and disqualified him from driving for 12 months.
The 36-year-old Malaysia national was a driver providing limousine services to ferry individuals between Singapore and Malaysia.
He was running late to pick up passengers and was driving towards Woodlands Checkpoint, where the incident happened.
The victim was a traffic controller responsible for maintaining the orderliness of traffic towards the Checkpoint.
This included directing all cars attempting to cut the queue in the car lane from the bus lane, to make a U-turn back towards Malaysia.
WHAT HAPPENED
On March 23, at about 7.08am, Shahrir drove his car towards Woodlands Checkpoint via the bus lane.
The victim, auxiliary police officer Muhammad Noralif Amir Hamzah, noticed that Shahrir was trying to filter left into the car lane from the bus lane.
He was also cutting into the queue of cars in the car lane.
Officer Noralif and his partner immediately signalled to Shahrir to make a U-turn, but he ignored them and continued to cut queue.
Noralif then stood in front of his car to stop him from filtering into the car lane, while his partner directed him to make a U-turn.
Though he was aware that the officer was standing in front of his car, Shahrir still insisted on filtering into the car lane because he was running late to pick up his passengers in Singapore.
He kept inching his car forward repeatedly toward the officer standing in front of his vehicle until it came into contact with the officer’s leg.
This was despite the fact that the officer’s partner had hit the car bonnet with his hand and shouted at him to stop.
Alarmed that Shahrir still did not stop, the partner reached his hand through the window of Shahrir’s car and managed to switch off his car’s engine.
Shahrir began to argue with the officer and switched the engine back on, before inching his car forwards repeatedly again.
This caused Noralif, who was still standing in front of his car and placing his hand on its bonnet, to take multiple steps back to avoid being collided into.
He then communicated the incident to his superiors, before allowing Shahrir to drive forward to Woodlands Checkpoint.
Several immigration officers then stopped his car from proceeding and called the police to complain about the incident at about 8.44am.
Noralif did not suffer any injuries from the incident.
In court, Deputy Public Prosecutor Louis Ngia sought between four and six months’ imprisonment and disqualification from driving for 12 months, while defence counsel Sunil Sudheesan sought four months’ imprisonment for his client.
In his mitigation plea, Mr Sunil said that the accused was going at slow speed at all material times, that the officer could have easily avoided or moved away.
Senior District Judge Bala Reddy interjected his plea, saying that the officer stood in front of his car to stop the accused from moving.
He added that whether the officer could move away was “not the point”, but the fact that the accused could have caused harm, which is “very aggravating”.
The judgment was delivered to Shahrir through a Malay interpreter, to which he responded tearfully in broken English that he “respects Singapore law”.
Anyone convicted of acting rashly or negligently such that they endanger someone’s life or personal safety can be imprisoned up to six months and/or fined up to S$2,500.
SINGAPORE — Furious that an auxiliary police officer stopped his car when he was already running late, a man tried to get on his way by inching his car repeatedly towards said officer, alarming him.
