Neighbours 'stuck-up', so... He sticks glue in keyholes

Neighbours 'stuck-up', so... He sticks glue in keyholes

Laguna Park's ex-estate chairman fined

By Celine Lim
April 23, 2009

HE thought two of his neighbours, who opposed the en-bloc sale of the Laguna Park estate, were 'stuck-up'.

So Lee Kok Leong, 63, who wanted the sale to proceed, glued shut the keyholes of both their units on 25 Aug last year.

He was arrested on the same day and charged with two counts of mischief.

Yesterday, the former chairman of the estate's management committee pleaded guilty and was fined $1,200.

His lawyer, Mr Ramesh Tiwary, tendered a medical report by Dr Ken Ung in court which stated that Lee was 'suffering from moderate to severe depression' at the time of the offences.

Lee could have been jailed up to a year and fined for each charge.

Of his decision to plead guilty, the businessman said: 'I just wanted to get it over and done with.

'What's there to regret? What's done is done. I don't know why I did it. It was done on the spur of the moment.'

At about 12.45am on 25 Aug, Lee went to the ninth-floor unit belonging to Mr Yap Cher Sim and squeezed super glue into the keyholes of the padlock, front and rear gates, stated court documents.

He then went to the next-door unit of Ms Alice Elizabeth Rappa, 54, and glued the keyholes of the front and rear gates.

The vandalism was only discovered at 5.10am when Mr Yap, 45, found that he was unable to insert his house key into the padlock of the front gate.

He then checked the footage from a closed-circuit television camera that he had installed along the common corridor.

Mr Yap recognised the then-chairman of the management committee from the footage and called the police.

Lee stepped down from his post after his arrest, and paid $590 to fix the damage to the two units.

Court documents revealed that he had bought two tubes of super glue the day before as he 'intended to seek revenge'.

Lee told The New Paper that he thought Mr Yap had opposed the sale of the 530-unit estate along Marine Parade Road due to vested interests.

He said he was displeased with Ms Rappa as she had not agreed to the sale even though her husband wanted it to proceed.

Although Lee said he found the two victims arrogant, he claimed he had never spoken to either of them.

In his client's mitigation, Mr Tiwary said Lee had a 'clean record'.

The lawyer noted that Lee had been diagnosed with depression in 1998, but was later discharged by doctors.

Relapse

Referring to Dr Ung's report, Mr Tiwary noted that Lee had suffered a relapse of depression 'brought on by sleep deprivation, stress factors and the medication he was taking at the time' last year.

He said his client's mailbox had been glued shut before the offences and that, together with the dispute over the en-bloc sale, had caused him 'anguish'.

Lee said he had been suffering from insomnia the two nights before the incident due to 'constant stress' at work.

However, a resident whose mailbox had been glued shut previously, said she was 'disappointed and astonished' at Lee's sentence.

'I'd have thought a stronger message could have been sent out.'

She declined to be named for fear of reprisals, noting the spate of vandalism related to the en-bloc sale last year.

Last December, the estate finally obtained the more than the 80 per cent approval needed for the en-bloc sale to go through.

It remains to be seen if an interested developer will make an offer.

The last-known asking price of $1.2 billion will result in each unit getting a payout of between $1.8 million and $2.3 million.

In 2007, some owners had hoped to get more than $3 million per unit.

Source: http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,199707,00.html?