9 weeks’ jail for butcher who threw ofo bike from 15th floor
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SINGAPORE — A 47-year-old butcher was sentenced to nine weeks’ jail on Friday (June 30) for throwing a yellow ofo bicycle from the 15th floor of a Housing Development Board (HDB) block at Upper Boon Keng Road last week.
Selamat Mohamed Ali was convicted of one count of committing a rash act that endangered human life on June 22. Another charge of dishonestly converting a yellow ofo bicycle to his own use was taken into consideration for sentencing.
The court heard that at about 5am on June 21, Selamat was heading home after a drinking session in Orchard Towers, when he decided not to return to his flat at Blk 11 in Upper Boon Keng Road.
Instead, he took a lift to the 15th-floor lift landing of the block to rest.
About half an hour later, he became worried about where he would stay as he had overheard that his uncle wanted to sell the flat, Deputy Public Prosecutor Dwayne Lum told the court.
Selamat then spotted two yellow ofo bicycles at the lift landing, which were left there by an employee of the bicycle-sharing company. The latter could not return them as there was no available vehicle to transport the bicycles.
The employee, whose job is to collect bicycles that belong to the company, is also living at a unit on that floor.
Selamat carried one of the bicycles and threw it over the corridor parapet of the 15th floor.
He did not check if there was anyone at the ground floor of the block before doing so. He also did not check if the bicycle had landed on anyone, or if anyone was hurt by his act, said DPP Lum.
Around that time, a witness and her husband were at the void deck sorting out newspapers for them to sell and deliver, when she heard a loud crash behind where they were standing. She turned to find a badly damaged yellow ofo bicycle on the ground and her husband called the police.
When the police arrived at the scene, they patrolled the building and found Selamat sleeping at the 15th floor lift lobby.
CCTV footage from a resident staying on the same floor showed him committing the offence.
DPP Lum added that the cost of damage to the bicycle was S$300 and no restitution has been made to date.
Selamat’s sentence has been backdated to June 23. For committing a rash act that endangered human life, he could have been jailed up to six months, or fined up to S$2,500, or both.
In another bike-throwing case, a 14-year-old boy was arrested on June 16 after he allegedly threw an ofo bicycle down from a flat at 116B Jalan Tenteram, the police said.
Video footage of the act was widely circulated on social media the day before, which showed the bicycle being lifted over the railing of a corridor partition before being dropped to the ground floor.
