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8 days' jail, fine for recalcitrant trespasser

This article is more than 12 months old

A man who had been in and out of jail for stalking multiple women got into trouble with the law yet again after he trespassed into different properties near Holland Road.

Colin Mak Yew Loong had told investigators that he did not have a home in Singapore and that his family members were hostile to him.

On Friday (May 13), Mak, 46, was sentenced to eight days' jail and a fine of $4,000.

He will spend an additional 16 days behind bars if he is unable to pay the fine.

He admitted to trespassing into the Museum of Ice Cream Singapore, St George's Church, anda mixed office and residential building in Cluny Road.

Mak had been sentenced to nine months' jail in November 2020 after pleading guilty to one charge each of unlawfully stalking a woman and harassing another.

This was Mak's third conviction for harassment-related offences.

He had stalked a foreign national, who was then a music teacher here, between 2018 and 2019.

Mak also attempted to meet the woman on two occasions, in June and July 2019. He failed to encounter her the first time, but spotted her on the second occasion.

When she saw him approaching, she fled into the nearby music school where she was working and hid in one of the classrooms. Mak eventually left the premises without meeting her.

He also sent the general manager at the music school several documents between 2018 and 2019, claiming that the music teacher was working illegally in Singapore. He even turned up at the manager's workplace during that period, repeating the same allegations to her.

Separately, in September 2019, Mak was sentenced to two months' jail after pleading guilty to unlawfully stalking a woman from Kazakhstan.

He had harassed her with 278 text messages and 62 e-mails from November 2018 to July 2019.

And in December 2013, he was sentenced to three years' jail and a fine of $5,000 for various offences, including cyber-stalking an American singer whom he had never met.

He had sent her multiple threatening e-mail and voice messages between 2005 and 2011.

The ordeal caused the singer to develop post-traumatic stress disorder and she later wrote a book about her experience.

For the current cases, the court heard that Mak trespassed into the Cluny Road property multiple times between last December and February this year to clean his laundry and use a toilet.

On four different occasions between December last year and this March, he trespassed into the Museum of Ice Cream Singapore in Loewen Road to use a fan and look for food in a rubbish bin.

Mak also trespassed into St George's Church in Minden Road multiple times between June last year and last month while it was not in operation.

Investigations revealed that he had entered it to sleep and wash some items of clothing. The police were then alerted on April 13.

On Friday, Mak told the court that he was very sorry and that he just wanted to get on with his life.

COURT & CRIMEcrime