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A MAN was so protective of his older brother, who was at the wheel of a car which got into an accident, that he wanted to take the rap.
Lee Wee Sern, 26, unemployed, claimed he was the driver when the police turned up at the accident spot.
On Thursday, Lee was jailed a week and fined $1,000 after he admitted he lied to the police to stop them from checking to see if his brother was drink-driving at the time.
A district court heard that Lee was in his brother's car when it crashed into another car along Bedok Road on May 29 this year at about 12.30 am.
When the police showed up, Lee, who was the front seat passenger, claimed he was the driver.
However, after a series of questions, investigations showed that he was not behind the wheel at all. It was his older brother, Wee Li, who was the alleged driver.
The older Lee will be dealt with next week.
In his mitigation, Mr S. Radakrishnan, the siblings' lawyer, said the brothers were close and very protective of one another.
The younger Lee had lied to the police not because he wanted to obstruct police investigations, the lawyer said.
'He was instinctively motivated by a sense of brotherly loyalty and solidarity... It was just blind loyalty and care for his brother which caused him to do this,' he added.
The younger sibling had a clean record and there was no malicious intent, he told the court.
Lee could have been jailed for up to six months.
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