Jail for man who slapped mentally impaired jobseeker, causing skull fracture
Screengrab from Google Street View of the coffee shop at Block 279 Sengkang East Avenue.Bookmark
SINGAPORE: A man slapped a mentally impaired person seeking a job so hard that he fell to the ground and fractured his skull, later bleeding from his nose and vomiting.
Thomas Lee Zhixiong, 38, was sentenced to six months and four weeks' jail for this and other violent acts - one for slapping a coffee shop worker for burnt roast meat and another for kicking a motorcycle down.
He pleaded guilty to two charges of voluntarily causing hurt and another of mischief, with a fourth charge taken into consideration.
The offences occurred at a coffee shop at Block 279 Sengkang East, where Lee worked as a consultant for the group owning the shop.
He did paperwork and visited the coffee shops under the company to check on the operations.
The court heard that the most serious offence occurred on Jan 24, 2018, the day Lee's company had an opening ceremony for the coffee shop after taking over its management.
The victim, a 50-year-old man who had a head injury as a child, had previously done odd jobs for the stall tenants under the previous management. He suffered from developmental delay, mental impairment and scar epilepsy.
VICTIM ASKED FOR JOB, LEE SLAPPED HIM TO THE GROUND
He followed Lee around that day, tugging on his shirt, asking for a job.
Lee turned around and gave the victim a hard slap, causing him to fall backwards and hit the ground with a loud sound, said Deputy Public Prosecutor Andrew Low.
Lee scolded the victim and walked away to smoke, while some coffee shop patrons rushed to help the fallen man and wanted to call an ambulance.
Lee told them not to, saying he would call the Institute of Mental Health to take the victim away, and said the latter was just acting.
He also told some of the staff to move the victim aside, so that he would not affect the business at the coffee shop.
Lee called the IMH hotline and then the police, saying: "One mental disorder person here causing trouble."
The victim's mother went to the coffee shop after hearing about the incident, and found her son too weak to stand, although he had regained consciousness.
She took her son home, where he bled from his nose, vomited and suffered from urinary incontinence.
VICTIM HAS BEEN STAYING AT NURSING HOME SINCE
He was later taken to hospital and spent 26 days in a ward before being transferred to a nursing home where he stays to date.
A report from the hospital showed that the victim became non-communicative after the incident, which fractured his skull and caused bleeding in his brain.
He now needs help for his daily activities, and has poor balance and safety awareness, with his condition unlikely to improve.
Lee initially denied hitting the victim, but later admitted that he had swung his arm with "force larger than normal".
He said he wanted the victim to "remember the lesson through pain".
This was not the first or last violence-related incident.
SLAPPED CHAR SIEW COOK, KICKED MOTORCYCLE
Months after this, on Jun 16, 2018, Lee went to a stall at the coffee shop and demanded to know who had cooked the char siew or roasted meat.
He scolded the cook and asked why the meat was burnt, while the cook stood quietly.
Suddenly, Lee slapped the cook so hard that he hit the corner of a stainless steel cupboard and cut his cheek below his eye.
Lee had also kicked the motorcycle belonging to a Certis CISCO Security compliance officer in charge of parking enforcement.
When he saw the officer in his uniform at the loading and unloading bay of the coffee shop on Jan 22, 2018, Lee approached him shouting: "Summon summon, keep summoning, siao eh."
He recognised the officer as the same one who had previously issued him summons at the same place.
Lee went to the officer's motorcycle, which was parked nearby, and kicked it so it fell, before challenging the officer to call the police.
The prosecutor on Friday asked for seven months and two weeks' jail, noting that the first victim was a vulnerable one, who was merely asking Lee for a job.
"There is public interest to ensure that workplace violence will not be tolerated," he said. "The accused has not even offered to compensate the medical bills."
ACCUSED HAS SHORT TEMPER, ABUSED AS CHILD: DEFENCE
Defence lawyers Josephus Tan and Cory Wong of Invictus Law asked instead for three months' jail and a fine of S$2,300, saying that their client had a short temper and was abused as a child.
Mr Wong added that Lee's parents divorced when he was three years old, and he had to drop out of school and find work for himself at 13.
His family lives in a rental flat and he has three children, one of whom was born just two days ago.
Mr Tan said the victim had a role to play in the incident, as he was following Lee around and tugging at his shirt when Lee reacted, "albeit disproportionately".
He added that Lee was remorseful and had shaved his head in preparation to serve his sentence, and was not asking for any deferment despite the recent birth of his child.
Coming from "the lowest tier of society", Lee asks for the court's compassion so that he does not need to go to jail for longer than necessary, said the defence.
The prosecutor said the claims of familial hardship were "exaggerated", and that such acts of violence cannot be condoned, much less against a vulnerable victim.
The judge said that "despite best efforts put forward by your lawyers", she was unable to find any significant mitigating factors in the case.
For each charge of voluntarily causing hurt, Lee could have been jailed for up to two years, fined a maximum of S$5,000, or both.
Source: CNA/ll(hm)