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A 36-year-old Malaysian man was on Thursday (Apr. 13) sentenced to four weeks' jail for inching his car repeatedly towards an auxiliary police officer at Woodlands Checkpoint.

Mohd Shahrir Johari pleaded guilty to one charge of acting rashly to endanger human life or the personal safety of others.

He is also disqualified from driving for 12 months.

According to court documents, Shahrir was a driver for his wife's transport business.

He provided limousine services to ferry individuals between Singapore and Malaysia.

What happened

Wanted to cut the queue in the car lane

At about 7:08am on Mar. 23, 2023, Shahrir was driving his car towards Woodlands Checkpoint when he decided to cut the queue of cars by overtaking using the bus lane.

Auxiliary police officer Muhammad Noralif Amir Hamzah, whose role is to control the traffic towards the checkpoint, spotted Shahrir trying to filter into the car lane from the bus lane.

Noralif and his partner immediately signalled to Shahrir to make a U-turn, but the latter ignored them and continued his attempt to cut the queue.

Noralif stood before Shahrir's car to stop him from filtering into the car lane while his partner directed the Malaysian to make the U-turn.

Shahrir insisted on cutting the queue as he was late to pick up his passengers in Singapore.

Despite being aware that Noralif was standing in front of his car, Shahrir inched his car forward repeatedly towards him.

Alarmed by what was happening, Noralif's partner used his hand to hit the car's bonnet and shouted at Shahrir to stop.

However, Shahrir persisted, and his car came into contact with Noralif's leg.

Repeated his actions despite being told to stop

Noralif's partner reached his hand through the open window of Shahrir's car and successfully switched off the engine.

Shahrir then had a dispute with Noralif's partner before turning the engine on again.

He continued to inch his car forward when Noralif was still standing in front of his vehicle.

Noralif was forced to take multiple steps back to avoid being hit.

He subsequently communicated the incident to his superiors before allowing Shahrir to drive to Woodlands Checkpoint.

Shahrir was eventually detained by Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers.

ICA handed him to the police.

Noralif did not suffer any injuries from the incident.

He teared up in court

The prosecution sought between four and six weeks' imprisonment for Shahrir and a disqualification from driving for 12 months, citing a number of aggravating factors.

Police officers "must be protected from thuggish behaviour" to continue their job to maintain law and order in society, the prosecution emphasised.

It added that Shahrir's offence was premeditated, as demonstrated by his persistence.

While no actual injury was caused to Noralif, the prosecution highlighted that there was "serious potential harm".

Shahrir's defence counsel, who asked for a lighter jail sentence, argued that Shahrir was driving slowly and that the officer could have easily moved away or avoided getting hit, as reported by Today.

The district judge, however, pointed out that the officer was standing before Shahrir's car to prevent it from moving, and the argument on whether the officer could move away was "not the point".

He emphasised that it was "very aggravating" that Shahrir could have caused harm to the officer.

According to Today, Shahrir broke down in court when the judge delivered his sentence and said he "respects Singapore law".

Top image via Mothership for illustration purposes only.