Six weeks' jail for killing a kitten
By
Selina Lum
A 53-YEAR-OLD homeless man lifted a kitten from a group of stray
cats, to play with it.
But the little creature scratched and bit him, so Kok Yuen Hin
killed it.
Yesterday, he was jailed for six weeks after he admitted to
torturing the cat by strangling it on the evening of May 25.
He could have been jailed for up to a year and fined up to $10,000.
The sentence was cheered by Ms Deirdre Moss, executive officer of
the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, who added: 'The
courts have sent out a clear message that animal abuse is not
acceptable in our society.'
However, cases of extreme cruelty to animals are isolated, she
said. Since 1991, 16 people have been prosecuted for animal cruelty
and 13 of them were sent to jail.
Kok was arrested after a report by a passerby.
A magistrate's court heard that the kitten scratched Kok's right
thumb and arms in Hong Lim Park.
So he grabbed it, locked himself in a toilet cubicle at the nearby
Kreta Ayer Community Centre and took the animal's life, before placing
it in his haversack.
But he was caught by officers from the Kreta Ayer Neighbourhood
Police Post, after a man spotted him locking himself in the toilet
with the kitten.
Ms Moss praised the witness, saying: 'The result of his actions is
that justice has been served.'
A 36-year-old man was jailed for four weeks last November for
punching the family dog and hitting it with a wine bottle.
Leong Yew Foo got another two weeks for kicking his wife when she
tried to protect the dog.
Last September, Indian national Chinnaiah Solai, 28, who killed a
puppy by repeatedly slamming it on the ground, was jailed for three
months