Food Junction branch manager jailed 10 months for pocketing almost S$35,000
The court heard that Neo Say Lam, a branch manager at Food Junction in Century Square mall, collected money from tenants' sales and took some for himself.
SINGAPORE — In order to pay off his gambling debts, a branch manager at a Food Junction outlet in Century Square mall in Tampines repeatedly took cash from the food court’s end-of-day sales and petty cash.
Neo Say Lam managed to pocket a total of S$34,638 over about eight months, between September last year and May this year.
On Friday (Aug 23), the 43-year-old was sentenced to 10 months’ jail after pleading guilty to one charge of criminal breach of trust as a servant. The charge carries a maximum punishment of 15 years’ jail and a fine.
The court heard that Neo began working at Food Junction in August 2017.
His duties involved changing small currency notes for Food Junction’s tenants using company-approved funds, monitoring each tenant’s sales, managing the branch’s petty cash, collecting the end-of-day cash from sales from all the tenants, and depositing that cash into the company’s bank account.
During the period he took the money, Neo did not deposit all the cash after collecting the tenants’ money from sales. Instead, he took small amounts of between S$100 and S$200 for himself.
On May 17 this year, the human resource manager of Food Junction made a police report against Neo.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Asoka Markandu sought a custodial sentence of around 10 to 12 months’ jail. He told the court that while Neo was a first-time offender, he has made no restitution of the stolen money and “has indicated that he is unable to do so”.
Neo, who did not have a lawyer, gave his own mitigation plea. He said that he was “very regretful” for his actions, and told District Judge Ng Peng Hong that he wanted to finish serving his sentence quickly so that he could look after his wheelchair-bound mother.
His father had just died too, Neo added.
