SINGAPORE – In what prosecutors called “one of the worst cases of animal cruelty”, a man vented his frustrations by abusing cats in the Ang Mo Kio area.

Besides kicking and suffocating them, Barrie Lin Pengli also killed two cats by throwing them off high floors at HDB blocks.

On Oct 15, Lin, 32, admitted to three counts of animal cruelty. Two other similar charges will be taken into consideration for his sentencing on Nov 13.

The court heard that Lin has major depressive disorder, but Deputy Principal District Judge Kessler Soh declined to call for a mandatory treatment order in lieu of jail time.

Judge Soh said: “Rehabilitation has been wholly eclipsed... given the cruelty inflicted by the defendant on the cats and the extreme harm suffered by them.”

The court heard that Lin began abusing cats around the end of 2019.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Regina Lim said whenever Lin was feeling frustrated with life, he would go for walks in the Ang Mo Kio area.

DPP Lim said this was because Lin knew the area had more cats and he wanted the option to harm them when he felt angry.

Initially, he would kick them. But it soon escalated to suffocating them in sealable bags before releasing them.

Said DPP Lim: “(Lin) felt a sense of excitement, thrill and guilt while abusing the cats, and a sense of relief after he abused the cats.”

At around 3.30am on April 21, 2020, Lin dropped a cat from the 12th floor of Block 572 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 3. The cat died upon impact.

Lin disposed its carcass in a different area not mentioned in court documents. The cat was never found.

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A month later, on May 15, 2020, Lin dangled another cat over the parapet of the eighth floor of Block 645 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 6.

In fear, the cat struggled and scratched his hand, before he dropped it.

When he went to the ground floor and realised the cat was still alive, Lin gave it a hard stomp on its neck to kill it.

He then disposed of the carcass in a dustbin at a nearby bus stop.

An eyewitness who saw Lin kill the second cat alerted the police. Lin was arrested on the same day and released on bail.

Between December 2020 and June 2021, he sought psychiatric help and his depression symptoms improved.

He also got a full-time job in November 2021 and things started looking up. But he re-offended on Dec 27, 2021.

After a Christmas gathering with friends, Lin went to the block where he killed the second cat, as he wanted to test if he could control his urges to hurt the animals.

That day, he caught a cat and slammed it against a void deck wall twice.

DPP Lim said: “(The cat) could be heard screaming in response to the pain.”

The cat eventually escaped his grip and sprinted away.

As closed-circuit television footage of the act played in court, Lin watched it with furrowed brows.

Community cat feeders heard about the abuse and took the cat to a veterinarian, who found it had suffered multiple fractures.

The cat would also suffer osteoarthritis in the long term, said DPP Lim.

Asking for 24 months’ jail for Lin, DPP Lim wrote in her sentencing submissions: “The manner in which (Lin) abused the cats was brutal and he should be made to pay for what he had done.”

The prosecutor said that despite Lin’s psychiatric condition, he retained his abilities to control his impulses for all his offences.

In mitigation, Lin’s lawyer, Mr Azri Imran Tan, said: “There is little that can be said by (Lin’s defence) counsel about the acts themselves, and I will not attempt to justify these acts.”

He called the acts a “maladaptive series of attempts to reduce emotional pain”, and said Lin, who is a first-time offender, deeply regrets his actions.

Mr Tan added that his client got married in September 2023 and has the support of his family in his rehabilitation.

Judge Soh said he accepted that Lin could be rehabilitated, but declined to call for a mandatory treatment order.

Speaking to Lin, who stood silently in the criminal dock, Judge Soh said: “That is not to say... that you should not focus on your rehabilitation.

“You should, but at the same time, you need to serve the punishment for the crimes you’ve committed.”

This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.