53-year-old man swallowed cigarette to protect teen from NEA fines
On Tuesday (30 July), Ramamoorthy Reddiar Jayaraman was fined S$1,000 for swallowing a teenager’s cigarette.
The 53-year-old reportedly did so to protect the teenager from enforcement action meted out by National Environment Agency (NEA) officers.
Earlier in March, an unnamed teenager was spotted smoking next to Ramamoorthy at a void deck in Hougang — a breach of NEA regulations.
A prominent “No Smoking” sign was also present at the void deck in question.
Upon spotting the teenager smoking, two NEA enforcement officers approached the pair.
The NEA officers informed the teenager that he had committed an offence, and requested his particulars.
The teenager reportedly appeared nervous but did not respond to the enforcement officer’s request.
When the NEA officer repeated her request, Ramamoorthy asked the teenager to hand over the cigarette he was smoking.
He proceeded to swallow the cigarette and told the teenager to run away. The boy followed Ramamoorthy’s instructions and fled the scene.
Source: Matthew MacQuarrie on Unsplash. For illustration purposes only.
Claimed he wanted to protect teenager from having “blemished record”
Speaking in court, the 53-year-old explained that he acted impulsively at the time.
He added that he wanted to protect the teenager from having a “blemished record” from a young age.
Interestingly, court documents stated that the pair were unrelated.
In an attempt to mitigate his punishment, Ramamoorthy said he was unaware that eating cigarettes was an offence in Singapore.
He also pleaded for a lenient statement on the basis that he is the sole breadwinner supporting his family and mother, who is 84 years old.
Nonetheless, District Judge Shaiffudin Saruwan made it clear that eating cigarettes was not the offence he was being fined for:
You want to eat all number of cigarettes, that’s entirely up to you, the court has no issue with that.
Instead, the judge explained that he was being fined for obstructing an NEA officer’s exercise of their power.
In this case, Ramamoorthy’s action prevented the NEA officers from collecting the cigarette, which was connected to the offence of smoking in a void deck.
First-time offenders can be fined up to S$2,000 for obstructing an authorised officer from exercising their power.
Second or subsequent offences can be punished with fines up to S$5,000, jail for up to three months, or both.
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