Tourist jailed 4 weeks for slapping cop

When two police officers responded to a call for assistance in March, they arrived to find a Finnish tourist lying in a back alley near Fragrance Hotel in Selegie Road in just his underwear.

The man, Antti Tapio Peltomaki, had been spotted looking drunk and nearly naked in the lobby of the hotel.

The police officers managed to get him to put on a raincoat, but he removed it after a while and became agitated when they asked him some questions.

While the two policemen were trying to calm him down, Peltomaki suddenly slapped one of them, a 21-year-old national serviceman. The police officers could not calm him down, and had to arrest him.

Yesterday, the 35-year-old, who works as a sales manager with a video game magazine publisher, was jailed four weeks for voluntarily causing hurt to a public servant doing his duty.

Peltomaki pleaded guilty, and told the court he was ashamed of his actions.

In his mitigation, Peltomaki's lawyer Louis Joseph asked for a one-day term with a fine, or not more than a week in jail.

The lawyer said that as a result of the case, the Finn had to extend his stay in Singapore for two months, "at enormous financial cost and expense".

The offence was committed on the spur of the moment and there was minor injury caused, Mr Joseph added.

Peltomaki, who has a seven- month-old daughter, also offered to pay $1,000 in compensation.

This is his first brush with the law. For the offence, Peltomaki could have been jailed for seven years, fined and caned.

This article was first published on May 15, 2015.
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