Recalcitrant offender jailed for assaulting ex-girlfriend, showing obscene video to teen

SINGAPORE — A 27-year-old recalcitrant offender, who was described by a district judge as having a “disturbing history of violent and dysfunctional relationships” with his former girlfriends, was jailed and fined on Wednesday (Feb 20).

Budiman Tarmidi, who worked as a school cleaner, pleaded guilty to two charges of causing hurt to his ex-girlfriend, one charge of insulting the modesty of a woman and another charge of possessing obscene videos.

Three other similar charges were taken into consideration for sentencing, as District Judge Marvin Bay imposed a sentence of five months and four weeks’ imprisonment and a S$3,000 fine. If Budiman is unable to pay the fine, he has to serve another week in jail.

Budiman, who has borderline intelligence, was also jailed on two previous occasions. In 2014, he was sentenced to a year behind bars for molesting a woman and a teenager at residential staircase landings.

Three years later, he was jailed for 13 months for molesting a young girl in a lift and assaulting another former girlfriend.

HIT EX-GIRLFRIEND WITH CHAIR, KICKED AND PUNCHED HER

On Wednesday, the court heard that he most recently assaulted Ms Norhidayah Abdullah, 34, with a chair on June 5, 2017.

The couple got into an argument in his Sengkang flat after Budiman reminded her about her past relationship with her ex-husband. He then got angry and hit her in the ribs with a chair.

Too afraid to leave his flat at the time, Ms Norhidayah only went to non-profit organisation Beyond Social Services two days later on the pretext of seeking help for her daughter. She did not receive medical treatment.

Court documents showed that he also hit her on her lower back with a standing mirror in April and threw two stools at her two months later.

On June 19, they got into another argument at the Marsiling old market. He then kicked her in the head and punched her in the eye. This time, she went to a clinic because her nose was bleeding.

The court also heard that on April 17 last year, Budiman showed a 17-year-old secondary school student a pornographic video while she was walking behind him. The girl cannot be named to protect her identity.

The girl had just left her school in Clementi when she noticed Budiman crossing over to her side of the pavement. He was watching an explicit video on his mobile phone.

He deliberately walked slowly in front of her, before raising his phone up to show her the video. When she tried to walk away, he blocked her way and asked for her name and whether she watched pornography.

She told him no and ran away eventually. Budiman was arrested after the girl lodged a police report later that day.

Police subsequently found three obscene films on his mobile phone.

‘VIOLENT AND ABUSIVE TREATMENT’

Budiman’s lawyer, Vinit Chhabra, told the court that in the two years since assaulting his former girlfriend, his client’s “life has changed”. Budiman and his wife — who is not Ms Norhidayah — got married and had a child three months ago.

Mr Vinit, who has represented Budiman since his first offences, added that his client is unable to “make good, sound decisions” and is susceptible to acting on impulse. He pleaded with Judge Bay to sentence Budiman to no more than three months’ jail on “sympathetic grounds”.

In response, Deputy Public Prosecutor Tay Jia En questioned whether there was evidence of genuine remorse. “This is not borne out of his conduct — he is prone to reoffending while on bail,” he added.

In passing his sentence, Judge Bay told Budiman: “You have indicated that you have started a new life and have changed, but you must still expiate for the offences committed before that.”

“Not content with the violent and abusive treatment of those close to you in domestic relationships, you went on to insult the modesty of a 17-year-old schoolgirl by exposing her to the corrupting influence of a pornographic video, and even cornered her to coerce her to view the video, and give her impressions of what she saw,” the judge added.