SINGAPORE - Two women who separately helped a loan shark to commit acts of harassment by spraying pink paint on cars and placing debtor's notes on the windscreens were each sentenced to 15 months and 12 weeks in jail on Monday (Nov 6).
Nur Farhanah Jalaludeen, 21, and Nurul'ain Afiqah Mohamed Shariff, 25, pleaded guilty to two charges each with three and four other charges taken into consideration respectively in sentencing.
Farhanah had admitted to abetting a 22-year-old woman to cause annoyance to debtors on behalf of an unlicensed moneylender known as Sunny.
This took place at the open air carpark of Block 228, Simei Street 4, on June 14 this year.
She also admitted to a similar charge at the multi-storey carpark of Block 445 in Ang Mo Kio that evening.
The two proceeded charges against Nurul'ain took place at the multi-storey carpark of Block 548A, Hougang Street 51, and the carpark of Block 674B, Jurong West Street 65, on June 13.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Charleston Teo said that the 22-year-old co-accused, whose case is pending, had roped in Farhanah to help harass debtors on June 14.
She showed Farhanah a sling bag which contained a can of pink spray paint and some printed documents, saying she would be paid $120 for each location where she carries out the act.
As the 22-year-old knew that Farhanah was in need of money for Hari Raya, she invited her along and offered to share the profits.
Both women then randomly chose cars and Farhanah was paid $180 for committing the offences.
DPP Teo said in the other case, the 22-year-old debtor-turned runner had asked Nurul'ain to accompany her to vandalise cars on June 12.
The next day, the pair went to various places to carry out the acts.
At each place, Nurul'ain would wait for the 22-year-old while the latter sprayed paint on cars and placed the debtor notes.
The 22-year-old would then take photos of the cars after the jobs and send the images to Sunny via WhatsApp. She reported to Sunny the total number of jobs done and Sunny deposited $840 into her POSB bank account, after deducting her debts.
District Judge Marvin Bay said he agreed with the prosecution's stand that there should be an uplift on the benchmark sentence of 12 months' jail, given the aggravating factors.
"Chief among these would be that the acts of harassment were committed on randomly chosen motor vehicles.... This resulted in the wanton vandalism of cars owned by innocent victims who had no dealings whatsoever with the unlicensed moneylender," he said.
The maximum penalty for assisting an unlicensed moneylender to harass and cause property damage is five years' jail, a $50,000 fine and six strokes of the cane.
