Five women were given the Singapore Police Force's Public Spiritedness Award on Friday, June 7 for helping to catch an alleged wanker in Tiong Bahru.

Their quick thinking actions and demand for justice for the victim assisted the police and resulted in the male suspect being investigated for insulting the modesty of a woman.

The incident

On March 22, Ng Rui Ashlynna, 24, Hemaa Shruthi Sekar, 23 and Cheong Pei Lin Debbi, 23, (pictured above) were with two other friends at around 11pm.

They were on their way home after a friend's party and were walking along Kim Pong Road towards Tiong Bahru MRT station.

A middle-aged woman approached the group and informed them that a man was following her after he had masturbated in her presence.

The group of friends and the victim then hatched a plan to nab the suspect.

The plan

The group of six then planned to stall the man by pretending to ask him for directions, while Ng called the police.

The six women followed and cornered the man in a multi-storey car park and waited for the police to arrive.

The suspect had remained calm until that point in time.

Cheong, according to CNA, said the man then became visibly distressed and intimidated, repeatedly asking: “What do you want from me?”

Hemaa said: “I wasn’t really afraid because I had friends with me. The other thing was that we really wanted justice for the lady in question.”

“The more we saw him run, the more we wanted to catch him.”

The man was subsequently arrested for public nuisance. Investigations are currently ongoing.

Praised

Assistant Commissioner of Police Gregory Tan said at the ceremony: “The fact that six ladies acted very decisively at that time... I think that’s assuring because as we often say, low crime doesn’t mean no crime.”

“This is an example that even in moments where you don’t think something will happen, you come across someone who is doing an obscene act and we are very thankful that they took that decision to step forward.”

Ng said in response to receiving the award that the group's actions was "something that everyone should be doing".

“If you see someone who needs help, you should help them,” she added.

The other two friends, Anthea Julia Chua and Koh Huishan Deborah, will be given the award separately as they did not attend the ceremony.