SINGAPORE — Approaching his friend, Ng Jia Hong asked him suddenly, “What is your problem?”, and proceeded to attack him with a knife after the friend said, "I got no problem".

Ng slashed the man’s right shoulder and the wound was so bad it exposed the victim's muscle.

In court on Tuesday (Nov 21), Ng pleaded guilty to a charge of voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means, seven charges of supplying an unregistered health product and a charge of drug misuse.

There were 15 similar charges for possession of unregistered drugs and one charge for committing affray taken into consideration during sentencing. 

For the various offences, the 38-year-old was sentenced to four years and six weeks' jail and four strokes of the cane. 

SLASHING AT GEYLANG 

The court heard that Ng had known his victim, Mr Tan Ngiap Han, 33, for around a year through mutual friends. 

In the early hours of March 8 this year, he approached Mr Tan in the back lane of Geylang Lorong 14, where a verbal dispute soon ensued. Ng then brandished a knife that Mr Tan estimated was about 20cm long.

The court saw a video of the commotion captured by a police camera facing the alley.

Ng, who was wearing a black hat, slashed Mr Tan’s right shoulder with the knife and later continued gesturing at Mr Tan with the weapon. This happened at around 6.20am.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Phoebe Tan said that the two men later had a scuffle at a coffee shop nearby.

Mr Tan headed towards Geylang Lorong 17 after that, where members of the public helped to wash his wound and called for help. He was taken to Tan Tock Seng Hospital where he was discharged the next day.

Ng was arrested at 9.45am on the day of the attack before being hospitalised overnight, but there were no details on why he was warded. He was charged in court the next day.

DPP Tan sought a sentence of 12 to 18 months' jail and six strokes of the cane, pointing to the severity of the injury for the unarmed victim who underwent surgery for the deep cut to his shoulder that left his deltoid muscle exposed. 

Ng displayed a “disturbing pattern of escalation” from his past convictions related to hurting people in 2018 and 2021 where he had not used any weapons, DPP Tan noted.

Ms Josephine Costan, who represented Ng, referred to a report from the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) and said that Ng was suffering from paranoia at the time. She argued that due to the paranoia, Ng believed that his friend was trying to cause him harm at the time of the slashing. 

The lawyer also argued that some of Ng’s past convictions were gang-related offences and were different from the present charges.  

However, DPP Tan said that the IMH report also stated that Ng was assessed by the psychiatrist to not have been of unsound mind and that he likely had the power to control his actions. 

For his previous convictions, there had been an “alarming pattern” of Ng attacking strangers on the street, such as when he shouted at a female stranger at an MRT station's platform and hit her upper back, DPP Tan mentioned.

These were examples of past offences that were clearly not gang-related and established a past pattern that would warrant a substantial prison term for the present offences, DPP Tan added. 

SUPPLYING UNREGISTERED DRUGS 

The court also heard Ng’s seven charges for the supply of unregistered health products at the 284 Geylang Road coffee shop, located next to the back alley where he attacked Mr Tan.

Mr Vishnu Aditya Naidu, prosecutor for the Health Sciences Authority (HSA), told the court that at around 11.50am on March 31 in 2021, a party of officers from HSA, the Central Narcotics Bureau and the Singapore Police Force conducted a check on Ng who was at the coffee shop. 

Ng admitted that several products inside a transparent container and red pail under the table and chair where he was seated in the coffee shop belonged to him and the products were then seized by HSA. 

Among the unregistered health products seized were unlabelled bottles containing brown liquid and 500 tablets of Epam Nitrazepam, a medicine with sedative effects used for the treatment of sleep disorders. 

For supplying an unregistered health product, Ng could have been sentenced to a jail term of up to two years or received a fine of up to S$50,000, or both.

For voluntarily causing hurt by means of a weapon of offence, he could have been sentenced to up to seven years' jail or been fined or caned.