Apply the full weight of the law on cat killer, cat welfare activists urge Court

A 41-year-old unemployed man, Lee Wai Leong, admitted to throwing a cat from the parapet of his block of flats in Yishun Ring Road. The man with moderate intellectual disability committed the offence at Block 115B on Oct 30 last year.
The Deputy Public Prosecutor taking into consideration the mental condition of Lee and also the fact that he had acted without any cruel intent, said that he would not object to calling a probation report.
Under normal circumstances a jail term would be norm for the act of deliberately killing an animal. The maximum penalty for the offence is a $15,000 fine and 18 months’ jail. The judge in calling for a probation report on Lee said that the Court will reconvene on June 7 for sentencing.
Several cat welfare activists however are petitioning the Court and the Attorney-General’s Office to apply the full weight of the law, being an 18-months jail sentence, on the cat killer. In a petition delivered to the AGO today, the activists led by Pek Yang Xuan, also asked the Court to consider Lee’s parent who is the sole-breadwinner of the family, and not to let Lee off with a fine.
The petitioners pressed for a deterrent jail sentence for Lee because they feel that despite his intellectual disability, he knew what he was doing and how the general public would react to his wrongdoing.
They also feel that only a stiff jail sentence will send a right message to other potential animal abusers that the Court is serious in imposing the newly enacted animal cruelty laws. The petitioners feel that if left unchecked, animal abusers may go on to hurt fellow human beings eventually.
In pointing to the several cat deaths that have happened in Yishun recently, the activists suggest that only a deterrent sentence will stop acts of animal cruelty in the neighbourhood.
The petitioners said that cat lovers love their cats as much as parents would love their children, and the Court not imposing a stiff jail sentence on Lee would be akin to spitting in the face of such animal lovers.
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Sources: http://bit.ly/1TFrAPW and http://bit.ly/22lOH45