PETALING JAYA: A man was fined S$1,000 (RM3,441) for eating a teenager’s cigarette to allow the teenager to avoid enforcement action in Singapore.
According to Channel News Asia, the man was drinking beer by himself when he was joined by the teen, who began smoking a cigarette, despite there being a “No Smoking” sign.
The teen was not related to the man.
A National Environment Agency (NEA) officer spotted the teen smoking, told him he had commited an offence, and requested for the teen’s particulars.
The teen looked at the officer nervously but did not respond to the officers request, prompting the officer to repeat her request.
The man then requested the teen to hand him the cigarette and placed it in his mouth and devoured it.
He then told the teen to run away, to which he did.
The man told the court that he had done so as he wanted to help the teenager avoid having a “blemished record at a tender age”.
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The maximum fine for a first offender is S$2,000 (RM6,885).
“Eating a cigarette, I didn’t know is an offence in Singapore,” he was quoted as saying.
The man who was unrepresented, said that he was the sole breadwinner and asked to be pardoned, given a lighter fine, and asked for the return of his passport as he had a grandmother in Kuala Lumpur.
“First and foremost, I would like to disabuse you of the error, you are not here because you ate a cigarette. You want to eat all number of cigarettes, that’s entirely up to you, the court has no issue with that.
“You are here for the offence of obstructing the exercise of an NEA officer’s power. I just want to disabuse you of the misimpression,” district judge Shaiffudin Saruwan was quoted as saying.
The man paid the fine in full.
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