Serial offender back in jail after cheating sex worker
Fresh out of preventive detention, serial offender gets seven years in jail
A recalcitrant offender returned to a life of crime again last year, more than three decades since his first brush with the law.
Former minimart cashier Tang Hian Leng had just finished serving a 12-year spell of preventive detention for robbery - which came with 12 strokes of the cane -when he began re-offending.
The 47-year-old will now spend seven more years behind bars after he was sentenced to preventive detention again yesterday.
He pleaded guilty in April to criminal breach of trust, assault, verbally abusing a public servant and cheating a sex worker while posing as a policeman.
Preventive detention, which can last for seven to 20 years, is for recalcitrant offenders. They must serve the full sentence with no reduction for good behaviour.
Tang engaged the services of a sex worker on Oct 21 last year before lying to the 25-year-old Chinese national that he was a policeman.
He asked her to return the $100 he had earlier given her as it was so-called "government money". The woman believed him and complied.
Tang later asked her to have sexual intercourse with him again, and she agreed out of fear that he would take action against her otherwise.
After he left, she mulled over the incident and alerted the police the next day after realising that he could have deceived her.
Tang also admitted to misappropriating more than $4,000 from a minimart he worked at in Bukit Batok in July last year.
ASSAULT
He also assaulted a 36-year-old man at Block 371, Bukit Batok Street 31, about a month later, punching him in the face following a dispute over a woman.
While remanded at Changi Prison Complex on Jan 19 this year, Tang verbally abused a police station inspector who had turned up to serve some charges and record a statement from him.
The court heard that Tang first tangled with the law when he was just 15 and was given two years of probation for theft. He was in and out of jail after that for offences including molestation and criminal intimidation.
In 1998, Tang was given five years of corrective training for trespassing and theft. Corrective training is a prison regime for repeat offenders without the usual one-third remission for good behaviour.
Yesterday, District Judge Ow Yong Tuck Leong called Tang a recalcitrant offender who had shown a "blatant disregard for the law".
Visibly agitated after his sentencing, Tang exclaimed in Mandarin as he was led out of the courtroom: "You did not give me a chance."
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