Four men, all foreigners, were charged with causing hurt to one Singaporean man following a night of drinking in Geylang.
The incident, the court heard, was started after a perceived staring incident.
Yap Kiat Ching, 31, judged to have been the instigator of the fight, was sentenced to 10 months in jail.
The other three accused men, Ng Cheng Tiam, 51, Siaw Wee Leong, 37, as well as Ngo Ngoc Anh, 25, were sentenced to nine months in jail.
Ngo is Vietnamese, and the other three men are Malaysians.
The 49-year-old victim is a Singaporean security officer.
Closed-circuit television surveillance footage of the assault was played in court.
From the footage, Yap was in a black t-shirt and denim shorts, Ng was in a blue and white striped t-shirt and black shorts, Siaw was in a white t-shirt and grey shorts, while Ngo was in a black t-shirt and jeans.
Image via court documents
Image via court documents
The accused persons, all fruit sellers working for the same company, frequented a pub, Mask 51, at 698 Geylang Road.
The court heard that they intended to cause hurt that was not grievous, but the eventual hurt caused was grievous.
The accused persons had punched and kicked the victim on his face, head, body and legs, causing the victim to suffer multiple injuries, including a right black eye, bruises to the head, swollen lip, and rib fractures.
The accused persons, all first offenders, were represented by the same counsel.
All four accused pleaded guilty.
Lead-up to the incident
On Jan. 18, at around 10:30pm, the victim and his friends were having drinks at Mask 51.
They stayed there for some time, and the pub got increasingly crowded.
Sometime around midnight, Ng suggested to the other accused persons and his colleagues, which included other individuals not implicated in the assault, to have drinks at Mask 51 after work.
They agreed.
Ng then drove Yap, Siaw, and another man to Mask 51 in his car, as they were working at the same location at that time.
When they arrived at around 12:15am, Ngo was already there and had secured a table for the group.
Three other men, not implicated in the assault, subsequently arrived and joined the session.
The accused persons and their colleagues then continued to drink beer and dance at Mask 51.
By this time, the pub was fairly crowded.
Staring incident
The accused persons and their colleagues were drinking at a table next to the victim and his friends.
All parties had consumed alcohol and were fairly intoxicated.
Sometime around 2am, one of the victim's friends fell, knocking into one of the tables occupied by the accused persons and their colleagues, causing some of the glasses of alcohol to spill onto Yap and the floor.
The person who fell was then helped up by the victim and his friends.
Yap and Siaw noticed that the victim appeared to be staring at Siaw, as the victim had turned around to look at the accused persons a number of times.
Siaw asked the victim, “See what see?”, perceiving that the victim had been accusing him of causing his friend to fall.
The incident
Yap, who was dancing, then turned around and placed the victim in a headlock, using his arm to hold on to the victim’s neck.
Siaw and Ng similarly grabbed onto the victim.
They then started to tussle inside of Mask 51.
The accused persons’ colleagues, as well as other patrons of the pub, attempted to separate them, but to no avail.
Yap then dragged the victim out of Mask 51.
This was at around 2:08am.
The other accused persons followed him out of the pub, accompanied by their colleagues.
He and some of the other accused persons continued to argue with the victim outside the pub.
Took off shirt
At some point, Yap took off his shirt and put it back on as he was upset.
The verbal altercation between Yap, the victim, and some of the accused persons lasted for about two minutes.
The victim, Ng, and some of the accused persons then grabbed one another on the road outside Mask 51.
First punch thrown
Yap then walked over and started to throw punches at the victim’s head.
Ng joined in and started punching and kicking the victim.
Other persons, including those not implicated, attempted to stop the fight.
Yap and Ng chased the victim onto the road, and he fell.
Yap kicked the victim in the back.
He got up but was wrestled to the ground by Yap.
He was then punched several times by Yap, Ng, and Siaw, who had run in to join the assault.
Yap kicked the victim in the face.
Ngo then joined in to kick the victim twice in the ribs and the head.
At this point in time, Ng, Yap, Siaw, and Ngo had the common intention to voluntarily cause hurt to the victim.
Ng, Yap, and Siaw continued to kick the victim.
The victim was also kicked in the legs.
The other colleagues attempted to stop the assault and eventually managed to bring Ng, Yap, and Siaw away.
At around 2:37 a.m., a member of the public called the police, informing them: "People fighting along Lorong 39, outside Mask 51."
The accused persons then left the scene.
Taken to hospital
The victim was subsequently conveyed to Tan Tock Seng Hospital.
He was given nine days of medical leave.
He incurred a total of S$862.92 in medical expenses.
The victim continued to feel discomfort in his injured ribs for a period of time after the assault.
Provided compensation
The accused persons have since made compensation of a total of S$1,500 to the victim.
After the incident, the accused persons sought to apologise to the victim and eventually did so, the court heard.
In the written judgment dated Mar. 22, the judge wrote that the only significant mitigating factor was the accused person’s voluntary monetary compensation to the victim.
"Whether they did this because of the legal advice received in connection with sentencing, or they did this as a result of genuine remorse, I nonetheless accepted that such an act of compensation, coupled with the apology they made to the victim, should be accorded significant mitigating weight," the judge wrote.
The prosecution had argued that Yap was more culpable than his co-accused persons.
This was due to his acts of aggression in initiating the violence by placing the victim in a headlock in the pub and then dragging the victim outside, where grievous hurt was caused to the victim by all four accused persons.
The judge also noted that Yap was the person who threw the first punch.
For voluntarily causing hurt but resulting in grievous hurt, the offender could be punished with a jail term of up to five years, or fined up to S$10,000, or both.
Top photo via court documents