Mother and daughter jailed for Orchard Road shoplifting spree
The mother-daughter pair wanted to go shopping along Orchard Road but were jobless and out of cash. So they went on a shoplifting spree instead.
In two hours, they stole shorts, slippers and underwear worth almost $700.
But they were nabbed after a footwear shop employee remembered that they had stolen from his store a week earlier.
Yesterday, Fong Leok Moy, 68, and Wong Phuay Yee, 41, were each jailed 10 days after pleading guilty to three counts of theft in dwelling respectively. Seven other similar charges were taken into consideration for each of them.
The court heard a sales assistant at the FitFlop outlet in Wisma Atria called the police after he saw Fong and Wong walking into his store at 5pm on Oct 22, 2017. They left without buying anything but the 29-year-old followed them after he recalled that they had stolen slippers from his store the previous Sunday.
Many unaccountable items were found on them after they were detained by the police, and they admitted to stealing them. These included two pairs of slippers from the Havaianas store in Ngee Ann City, three pairs of workout shorts from a Cotton On store in Wisma Atria, and 25 pieces of underwear from the Victoria's Secret store in Mandarin Gallery.
Asking for two weeks' jail each for Fong and Wong, State Prosecuting Officer M. Mariyappan told District Judge Eddy Tham that the pair had committed similar offences previously.
In mitigation, defence counsel T.M. Sinnadurai said both Fong and Wong suffered from depression and sought treatment from a psychiatrist at Raffles Hospital.
Asking for two days' jail and a $6,000 fine instead, he said they pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity and cooperated with the police.
Fong and Wong must surrender to the court on Aug 29 after their request for the sentence to be deferred was granted.
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