S'porean man, 37, makes 1,035 silent calls to police in 1 week 'for fun', gets 23 days' jail

A 37-year-old Singaporean man, Foo Jia Hong, was sentenced to 23 days in jail for making 1,035 silent calls to various police centers over the course of a month. Foo claimed he made the calls simply for fun and enjoyment, according to court documents. He pleaded guilty to one charge of obstructing police officers at the Yishun Neighbourhood Police Centre from performing their public duties. Three other similar charges were considered during sentencing.

Foo used a stolen SIM card from a foreign worker to make the silent calls, which he obtained after finding it inside a second-hand phone cover he purchased at a pasar malam in Ang Mo Kio. He continued using the SIM card by topping it up with his EZ-Link card. Foo admitted to finding the SIM card, but claimed it had belonged to a foreign worker who had discarded it.

In addition to the 425 silent calls made to the Yishun Neighbourhood Police Centre, Foo also made 425 calls to three other neighbourhood police centres between April 21 and 29. The Yishun centre received 330 answered calls while the remaining 95 were unanswered calls. These unanswered calls caused a delay in phone lines, causing subsequent calls to be put on hold and preventing other calls from being promptly answered.

At his sentencing hearing, Foo was found to have a mild intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorder, but these conditions were determined not to have contributed to his offenses. The prosecution sought a jail term of three to five weeks, but Foo's lawyer argued for a more lenient sentence of two weeks, stating that calling the police centers was not equivalent to calling the emergency 999 hotline. Ultimately, the judge imposed a 23-day jail sentence, emphasizing the need for deterrence.