He was at the police station to post bail for his younger brother, but one guy would soon be booked, too, after it was discovered that he took a faucet from the toilet after the one at his house got damaged.
Seah Kian Li, 50, was at police division headquarters in Woodlands, Singapore, to post bail for his brother when he happened to notice that the faucet at the police station’s toilet would be a perfect fit for the broken one that he had at home.
So, Seah checked the faucet and saw that it was a bit loose. As the toilet was on the third floor which did not have a lot of people, Seah was able to easily unscrew the faucet from its spot and bring it home. No one actually noticed that he did this.
Stock photo; credit: Pixabay
For some time, Seah’s deed went unnoticed. This incident happened last March 1, but it was only about a month later, that someone finally discovered the loss of the faucet.
On March 28, the cleaning supervisor was making rounds on the third floor when she patrolled the toilet area and noticed that this particular faucet was gone.
Puzzled by the loss of the faucet inside the police headquarters, the cleaning supervisor immediately reported the matter to the divisional logistics officer. They had to pore over several weeks’ worth of CCTV footage before finally seeing the one from March 1.
The CCTV camera placed at the entrance captured Seah easily unscrewing the faucet from the basin and simply taking it away.
Stock photo; credit: Pixabay
Police officers revealed that though a CCTV camera was placed outside the toilet, it was only at the entrance. There are no cameras inside the toilet and the one outside only had view of the door and the two tap basins inside.
A search at his house revealed the lost faucet, not connected to the basin in his bathroom.
With the faucet reportedly costing around $170, the police officers were determined to file a case against Seah. Plus, they wanted to make sure that no one would try to take something from under their noses again!
Seah was sentenced to 3 months’ worth of jail time; that’s a lighter sentence considering the penalty could have reached up to 3 years or a fine of $2,000 plus caning from three to eight strokes. Ouch.
