SINGAPORE, Aug 2 — Having exhausted his savings on beer and other daily expenses a month after his release from a 20-year jail term, a man broke into a coffee shop to steal some money.

Yee Kiee Song, 76, has been convicted nine times since October 1963 for multiple housebreaking and theft charges. Following his last offence committed in 2003, Yee was sentenced to 20 years’ preventive detention.

Yee has not spent any significant period of time out of jail since 1969, court documents showed.

About a month after his most recent release in November last year, he reoffended again.

Yesterday, Yee pleaded guilty to two charges of housebreaking.

He was sentenced to nine years’ preventive detention, with his sentence backdated to his date of remand on January 2 this year.

Preventive detention is a severe punishment for recalcitrant offenders who the courts think should be locked away to protect the public from them.

Offenders sentenced to preventive detention will be put away for a period of between seven and 20 years.

They must be aged above 30, previously imprisoned, and certified fit for the sentence.

Yee ‘has not shown remorse’

Sometime in November last year, Yee was released from a 20-year preventive detention sentence.

By late December, he had spent all his savings on beer and daily expenses.

He then decided to break into a coffee shop to steal some money.

Yee surveyed a coffee shop at Serangoon for a few days before December 29 last year.

He observed that other coffee shops had back doors that were locked, and that it would require strength to break these locks before he could enter their premises.

On the other hand, that coffee shop at Serangoon was accessible from the rear, because it did not have any locked doors at the back. Court documents did not disclose how Yee came to know this.

On December 29, Yee waited for the coffee shop to close for the day, before he climbed in over its rear wall at about 1.30am.

The shutter to the coffee shop had been pulled down, but not locked.

Yee lifted the shutter and entered the coffee shop.

At the drinks stall, he opened a drawer containing cash and took about S$200 (RM681) and RM$100 (S$29).

He then moved to another stall that sold Indian food.

There was a padlocked drawer and Yee used a plastic scoop and four metal spoons to break the lock. He took S$6,450 in cash from the drawer.

He then wrapped the cash in a white cloth and placed it in the stall’s buffer heater.

However, he apparently forgot about the money and left it behind.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Suriya Prakash said that Yee later expressed regret at “not taking the S$6,000 away” due to his carelessness.

At about 1.45am, Yee then exited the coffee shop by climbing back over the rear wall.

He was identified and arrested on January 2 this year, and has been in remand since then.

Seeking a 20-year preventive detention term, DPP Suriya said that Yee “has not shown remorse for his offences”.

Since 1969, Yee “has not spent any significant period out of prison, with most of his convictions coming shortly after his release from a previous sentence”, DPP Suriya noted, adding that Yee’s reoffending shortly after his release last year “showed that the 20 years previously sentenced was actually necessary for the protection of the public”.

Of Yee’s most recent offence, DPP Suriya said: “While the accused left most of the money... in the coffee shop and did not benefit to that extent, the amount of money that he actually stole (from both the drinks and Indian food stalls) was not insignificant.”

The prosecution acknowledged that should Yee be sentenced to another 20 years in prison, he would be aged 96 when released, which was “way beyond the average life expectancy” of a Singaporean male.

Taking the average life expectancy of 85 years as a benchmark, Yee’s lawyer, Don Tan from Chia S. Arul law firm, sought a sentence of about eight-and-a-half years for his client, stating that upon release, this would leave Yee with six months to age 85 based on “life expectancy statistics”.

In sentencing, District Judge Hairul Hakkim said that a nine-year preventive detention term would be “appropriate”, and that Yee would be just over 85 years old, but still below the “national average of 85.7 years” when he is released.

For committing house-breaking, Yee could have been jailed for up to 10 years and fined. — TODAY