A girl wearing a school uniform was caught on camera stealing school shoes that had been left outside a HDB unit, on Wednesday (6 Jan). The theft occurred at a block on Jurong West St 93, around 6am.
The homeowner whom the girl stole from uploaded surveillance footage capturing the incident onto social media that same day. Although the video was subsequently deleted from the homeowner’s account, it was copied and began to trend after it was reposted elsewhere on the internet.
The video clip shows the girl wandering into the HDB corridor and glancing at the shoe rack outside the unit as she walked past the house. A few seconds later, the girl turns back and walks to the show rack. She picks up a pair of white school shoes from the rack and put it on her feet, before quickly walking away with the stolen shoes.
In her now-deleted post, the homeowner expressed shock at the girl’s audacity and questioned why she stole her son’s school shoes when there were other pairs of shoes on the shoe rack. Revealing that her son was late to school because of the theft of his shoes, the woman asked online: “The shoes are size 41. Are your feet as big as boys’ feet?”
She added that this was not the first time her family’s things that were left in the corridor have been stolen. She lamented: “It can’t be like this all the time, things are always missing when I put them outside the door, don’t you see a CCTV camera above your head?”　
Although the woman was upset, she urged netizens to contact her if they knew the girl. She told the Chinese daily that she did not mean to make a big deal or embarrass the girl by posting the video on social media but wanted to find out why she stole the school shoes.
Revealing that she did not call the police, she said: “I just want to know who she is and why she did it. She may have financial difficulties. If her family has no money to buy shoes, I don’t mind buying shoes for her.”
The woman also claimed that her husband had seen this girl near her home and believes that the girl is a resident of a nearby HDB flat.
Interestingly, others residents in the area have also complained about similar thefts. A 25-year-old resident who lives on the 10th floor of the block told the Chinese daily that school shoes belonging to both her and her brother were also stolen a few months ago. The resident has kept a watchful eye since then but the thief has not returned.