Part-time food deliveryman jailed 1 year, fined for assaulting parking warden

SINGAPORE — A Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) regular was having financial problems and wanted to make more money as a part-time GrabFood deliveryman.

However, Muhammad Nasri Sahari found himself on the wrong side of the law when he parked illegally on a single zig-zag line while picking up an order.

As a parking warden began issuing him with a summons, he lost his cool and tried various ways to stop him from doing so.

Nasri ended up shouting vulgarities at the warden, slapped the electronic handheld terminal out of his hand and punched him in the face. The warden’s tooth was loosened from the impact and had to be extracted later.

On Wednesday (Oct 30), the 31-year-old was sentenced to one year behind bars and fined S$500.

He pleaded guilty to three charges: Mischief, causing hurt and using abusive words towards a public servant. Another charge of mischief was taken into consideration for sentencing.

KICKED WARDEN’S MOTORCYCLE

The court heard that the parking warden, 56-year-old Andy Ngan, was employed by Certis Cisco. He was carrying out his enforcement duties along Binjai Park in Bukit Timah on Jan 13 this year when he spotted Nasri’s motorcycle parked illegally there.

Nasri called out to Mr Ngan, but the warden explained that it was too late not to issue the summons as he had already begun keying the details of the offence into his electronic handheld terminal.

They began arguing, with Nasri repeatedly advancing towards Mr Ngan. He then slapped the handheld terminal out of Mr Ngan’s hand.

Mr Ngan picked it up and moved across the road, but Nasri continued following him and grew more agitated. He yelled out a vulgar phrase at the other man and smacked his hand again, causing the handheld terminal to fly a distance away.

As Mr Ngan went to retrieve it once more, Nasri punched him on the wrist and face, causing one tooth to fracture and another tooth to loosen.

Mr Ngan then called the police. While doing so, Nasri rode his motorcycle over, alighted and kicked Mr Ngan’s motorcycle, causing it to fall.

Nasri has since given him S$1,000 in compensation for his injuries and paid S$294 for the cost of repairing the motorcycle.

PROSPECT OF FINE WAS ‘FRUSTRATING’

In mitigation, Nasri’s lawyer Ashwin Ganapathy said that he had been tired from delivering food for almost eight hours without resting.

He could not find any suitable parking spots when he reached the location of the incident, and parked illegally as he thought he would take less than a minute to collect the food order, Mr Ganapathy added.

As he was “undergoing tremendous financial stress” at the time, knowing he would have to pay a parking fine “frustrated (him) greatly”. While he knew he should not have parked illegally, a late delivery could result in him being penalised, the lawyer noted.

“What tipped our client over was the manner in which (Mr Ngan) responded to his pleas. (Mr Ngan) was rude to our client and he felt that (Mr Ngan) was not empathetic… It was at that moment when our client let his emotions get the better of him,” Mr Gapanthy said.