Recalcitrant housebreaker pleads guilty

Recalcitrant housebreaker pleads guilty
By Shaffiq Alkhatib

SINGAPORE: A district court on Friday heard that an odd-job worker had broken into more than a hundred homes just six months after his release from prison for a similar offence.

Within a two-year period, 48-year-old Bay Buck Siong managed to make off with cash and valuables worth nearly S$1 million in all, to feed his gambling addiction.

The recalcitrant burglar was first convicted of housebreaking in 1993 and sentenced to seven years' jail. Shortly after serving this sentence, Bay committed the offence again and was given nine years corrective training with 24 strokes of the cane in 1999.

Assistant Public Prosecutor (APP) Lim Yu Hui said Bay broke into homes to support his gambling addiction.

For his current offences, she said he had struck at "almost every geographical location in Singapore" between January 2009 and January 2011. These include places such as Simei, Clementi and Yishun.

Bay had also chosen his victims carefully - targeting homes that faced either expressways or open fields, said APP Lim. He did this to lessen the likelihood of anyone catching him committing his crime.

The brazen burglar, who pleaded guilty to ten of 150 charges, broke into most of the flats during the day.

Bay admitted he had used a screwdriver to force open the sliding windows of the apartments before entering them. After ransacking the units, he would flee in his red van.

Acting on a tip-off, Police arrested Bay at the Resorts World Sentosa casino on January 25. He was found with S$1,700 cash, 27 pieces of commemorative coins and two pawn shop receipts.

Bay told officers that he had won the cash from the casino. He however, admitted that he had stolen the coins and receipts.

Officers later searched his van and seized items including four woollen gloves as well as two screwdrivers.

Bay is represented by lawyer, Teo Choo Kee, who asked the court to give his client a non-crushing sentence, saying that Bay was "not incapable of being reformed".

Bay had made no restitution and most of the stolen items could not be recovered as he had sold them off before using the proceeds to gamble.

He is now in remand and will be back in court on June 23.