May 5, 2010
2 jailed for assaulting golfers
<!-- by line --> <!-- end by line --> TWO men were jailed on Wednesday after they had been found guilty of assaulting two golfers at Singapore Island Country Club last year. Vikneswaran Ruvy, 21, then a delivery attendant, had used a golf club to hit the back of Mr Robert Tan Sin Chuan's head at the country club in Sime Road on Feb 1 last year. For this, he was jailed for 15 months and ordered to be given three strokes. He was also given a consecutive six weeks' jail in an unrelated case of pulling the hair of 22-year-old security officer Gunavathi Punniyamoorthy, at East Meadows Condominium last Dec 11.
Part-time mover Vinodh Raveendran, 25, was convicted and jailed for three months for kicking the back of Mr Tan, 53, a branding consultant, that morning. Vikneswaran was also found guilty of punching the face of another golfer Lawrence Loh, now 61, who had asked them to leave. Mr Loh, an executive vice-president (Display Advertisements) in the marketing division of Singapore Press Holdings, was playing golf with Mr Tan and two others when the attack took place.
He told the court he was the first person to make his way to the tee-box when he saw three youths lying on the grass patch. He told them to leave as it was 'very dangerous to lie there', but the trio started to mimic him. When Mr Loh told them that that was a private club, the trio again parroted him. Subsequently, he raised his voice and told them to get out. All then pounced on him and he was punched in his face. He then saw another five youths joining in and 'all hell broke loose'. All sorts of things were hurled at him and his friends. The assault only stopped only when Mr Tan collapsed to the ground after Vikneswaran had hit him on the back of his head with the golf club.
