Couple fined for dirtying neighbour's car with various sauces

Chilli sauce, satay sauce and soya sauce – these were the ingredients used by a couple not to cook, but to pour over a car, because they wanted to chase away a car that shone headlights into their flat every night.

Lau Kin Kee, 40, and Ng Choon Meng, 40, were fined $2000 and $1000 respectively, after they pleaded guilty to committing mischief yesterday.

Ng, who spoke in Mandarin, had begged for leniency as they are expecting their first child in December.

They had poured various sauces thrice on the car, which always parked at the same spot in the multi-storey carpark next to the couple’s flat in Punggol Central.

The couple was bothered by the headlights of the car as it shone into the flat whenever it parked. It sometimes woke Lau, who was pregnant.

Lau had first suggested to pour something on the car so that the driver would not park there.

They first poured chilli sauce on March 27, then threw tissue paper soaked in dark soya sauce a week later. The next day, Lau also poured satay sauce and soya sauce on the car.

The couple was arrested on April 5, when police checked surveillance cameras in the carpark after receiving a report from the owner of the Honda Jazz.

“These offences are very anti-social and unneighbourly,” said Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Carene Poh.

District Judge Lee Poh Choo agreed, calling the couple “unreasonable”.

The couple could each have been jailed for up to a year and fined up to $10,000.

(Oct 2018, in-class assignment)