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AN UNEMPLOYED man returned home drunk and leapt to his death shortly after a dispute with his parents, a coroner's court heard on Wednesday.
Not long after Selvaraja Suppiah's fall from the ninth-floor corridor of Block 33 Telok Blangah Way, his distraught father, Nadeson Suppiah, 55, also followed suit by jumping from the 10th floor of the block in the early hours on June 7.
At a joint coroner's inquiry, State Coroner Eddy Tham recorded a verdict of suicide on the 25-year-old's death as well as Nadeson's.
The court heard that Selvaraja had financial and relationship problems. He had broken up with his girlfriend four to five months earlier, and lost his job as a safety supervisor about a month before the incident.
He had also borrowed money from a loanshark.
Selvaraja also told a cousin and a friend his intentions to end his life on many occasions.
On June 6 at about 10.30pm, he returned home tipsy. When he told his mother, Madam Maliga Veerapan, 49, he was going out again, she tried to stop him. The father also intervened. The scene turned sour.
Selvaraja locked the gate and moments before he leapt from the corridor, his father had scolded him and called him a 'lousy son''.
The family was stuck in the flat as the keys could not be found.
After civil defence officers had cut the padlock, Nadeson went to the corridor and reacted emotionally. Police officers and relatives had to physically restrain him from the cement railing.
At the ground floor after viewing his son's body from outside a police cordon, he was led by relatives and friends to a stone bench at the void deck. He slipped away, took a lift to the 10th floor and jumped down.
None of the family members was in court for the inquiry.
