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SINGAPORE – A serial stalker did not learn his lesson and continued to harass a woman, less than a year after he was released from prison for a similar crime involving another victim.
He even sent him a letter claiming that a member of his staff, whom he had been harassing before his last jail sentence, was “a satanic liar and a drag on Singapore.”
Colin Mak Yew Loong, 45, was sentenced to nine months in jail on Wednesday (November 18).
He had pleaded guilty to one of the charges of unlawful harassment of one woman and of harassing another.
His victims cannot be named due to a gag order to protect their identities.
This is Mak’s third conviction for crimes related to stalking.
In December 2013, he was sentenced to three years in jail and a $ 5,000 fine for various crimes, including American cyberbullying singer Leandra Ramm, whom he had never met.
He had sent her multiple threatening emails and voicemails between 2005 and 2011.
The ordeal caused Ramm to develop post-traumatic stress disorder and later write a book about his experience.
In September last year, Mak was sentenced to two months in jail after pleading guilty to illegally stalking a Kazakh woman. He had harassed her with 278 text messages and 62 emails from November 2018 to July 2019.
In the latter case, Mak stalked a foreigner, who is a music teacher here, between October 2018 and 2019.
Court documents indicate that he prepared and printed at least 20 pages of documents, including photographs of the woman and her musical performances. She left these documents, which also contained allegations that she was working illegally and committing crimes in Singapore, in a place where they could easily be found or handed over to the victim.
Mak also tried to meet the woman on two occasions: in June and July of last year. He couldn’t find her the first time, but he saw her the second time.
When she saw him approaching, she fled to the nearby music school where she was working and hid in one of the classrooms. Mak eventually left the facility without knowing her.
The woman finally filed a police report in October last year.
Her victim impact statement, which outlined the emotional impact her actions had on her, stated that she would cancel potential events out of fear that he might show up and harass her.
Mak also sent the general manager of the music school several documents between 2018 and last year, which claimed that the music teacher was working illegally in Singapore. He even appeared at the manager’s workplace during that period, telling him the same allegations.
Later, Mak wrote him a letter on July 8 this year, almost 10 months after he was released from prison for his previous conviction.
Among other things, the letter claimed that the music teacher was a “satanic liar” and that she had made mistakes in violation of her work pass.
He also stated that “things can get very complicated from a legal point of view” for the director of the music school and the teacher, and that “prosecutions will continue” if they refuse to surrender to the Immigration and Control Authority.
On Wednesday, District Judge Jill Tan took note of Mak’s mitigation statement, in which she urged the court to give him a lighter sentence as he was a “loyal citizen of Singapore” and wanted to “enforce the law.” about the music teacher.
She pushed back her sentence to July 16, when she was placed in pretrial detention.
For illegally harassing the music teacher, Mak could have been jailed for up to two years, or fined up to $ 10,000, or both.
He could also have been jailed for up to six months or fined up to $ 10,000, or both, for his crime of stalking.
These are reinforced punishments under the Protection Against Harassment Act, for which Mak is responsible due to his 2013 conviction.
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