SINGAPORE — When he learnt that his girlfriend had previously been tricked into a relationship by a married man, Wong Guoliang was determined to teach the philanderer a lesson.

He set up a meeting by pretending to be a potential customer of the man’s renovation business, then jumped him with a parang in a frenzied attack that caused the victim’s intestines to spill out.

Yesterday, Wong, 34, was sentenced to five years’ jail and nine strokes of the cane for the attack, which a district judge described as “shocking, violent and vicious”.

The court was told that Wong, a property agent, was mad when his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend had lied about being single, when he was in fact married with a son.

So he called the man on May 28 last year with a plan to “teach the victim a lesson”.

Pretending to be someone named “Michael”, Wong asked the contractor to meet him on the pretext of discussing renovation plans.

Wearing a surgical mask to hide his identity, Wong hid a 35cm-long parang behind his back when the victim showed up.

When the victim got near, Wong whipped out the parang and swung it several times, slashing the victim on the arm, face, upper back and abdomen.

The victim managed to escape and was sent to the National University Hospital, where he was hospitalised for 11 days.

But parts of his intestines could not be salvaged and had to be removed.

In sentencing, District Judge Jasvender Kaur noted that Wong’s attack involved “a very significant degree of premeditation”, including going to great lengths to ensure the victim would be caught unawares.

It was “miraculous” that the victim recovered from the sustained assault, she added.

The prosecution had sought a jail term of between 42 to 48 months and at least nine strokes of the cane for the attack, but the judge imposed a longer custodial term of five years.

She also disagreed with a psychiatric report stating that Wong suffers from a “personality disorder” and had acted “impulsively” in this case.

“Your conduct cannot be described as impulsive ... There was significant premeditation to lure the victim and avoid detection,” said District Judge Kaur.

For voluntarily causing grievous hurt with a deadly weapon, Wong could have been jailed up to 15 years, on top of a fine and caning.

Wong, who was also convicted of driving under disqualification, without insurance, and without the vehicle owner’s consent, was sentenced to one year in jail and fined S$1,000 for those offences.

In addition, he was disqualified from holding or obtaining all classes of driving licences for 20 years from the date of his release.