Man with uniform fetish gets jail for stealing police items, including jacket from traffic cop's unattended bike

SINGAPORE — Upon noticing a police jacket on an unattended traffic officer's motorcycle parked along the road, a man with a fetish for uniforms decided to grab the jacket and take off with it. 

Lam Seng Yip, 52, was sentenced to two weeks' jail on Tuesday (July 11) after pleading guilty to two charges of theft in December last year. 

A report from the Institute of Mental Health stated that Lam had been diagnosed with having "sadomasochistic and fetishistic interests amounting to a paraphilic disorder".

His "fetishistic interest" was mainly in the uniforms of various uniformed services such as the military or police, court documents stated. 

Lam had already been convicted in 2019 of stealing operational items from police and Aetos traffic marshalls and given a mandatory treatment order. Details of the order were not disclosed in court documents.

He stole the police jacket in a separate incident in 2019.

Then in June 2022, Lam stole a police officer's operational bag from her unattended car as the officer attended a police matter.

WHAT HAPPENED 

On Sept 20 in 2019 at around 9pm, a traffic police officer was attending to an accident at the junction of Buangkok Green Road and Yio Chu Kang Road.

Parking his motorcycle along the road in front of a block at Hougang Avenue 9, he then placed his traffic police jacket on top of his bike. 

Lam was driving by and saw the motorcycle and unattended jacket. 

He returned to the scene about half an hour later and stopped his car along the road. 

Lam grabbed the jacket, which had a name tag and a sergeant rank epaulette. It was worth about S$140, court documents stated. 

Noticing Lam behaving suspiciously, the traffic police officer chased him.

However, Lam ran to his vehicle and drove off with the jacket. He later removed the name tag, rank and insignia from the jacket and threw them away.

Lam was arrested the same day at around 11.30pm and the jacket was seized from him. 

Nearly three years later, Lam stole a police bag from another police officer. 

On June 24 in 2022 sometime around 11pm, he came across a police car parked in front of Block 171 at Woodlands Street 11. 

The police officer had parked the car there and left to attend to a case. 

Lam noticed that the car's windows were wound down and that there was a bag on the back seat. 

He then grabbed the bag and "ran as far as he could from the incident location" before booking a private hire car to return home, court documents stated. 

The bag contained items including a police vest and cap, as well as credit cards. The total value of the items was around S$383.20. 

Lam was arrested the day after and the stolen items were recovered. 

Deputy Public Prosecutor Ronnie Ang sought a sentence of six to eight weeks' jail, noting that Lam was not a first-time offender and had committed similar offences before. 

However, District Judge Kessler Soh imposed a lower sentence of two weeks' jail. 

The judge said that he hoped that Lam would seek psychiatric treatment so that he does not repeat his offences. 

For each count of theft, Lam could have been jailed for up to three years, fined, or both.