Woman charged with possessing weapons after stabbing herself outside St Hilda's Secondary School

SINGAPORE — A 53-year-old woman who stabbed herself in the stomach in an incident outside St Hilda’s Secondary School was charged on Wednesday (Sept 21) during a court hearing convened at her hospital bed.

Juliana Abdul Kadir, a Singaporean, is accused of having a 21cm-long knife and a 13cm-long penknife blade in public on Monday evening.

She currently faces a single charge of possessing offensive weapons in a public place under the Corrosive and Explosive Substances and Offensive Weapons Act, and has been remanded for psychiatric observation.

She will return to the State Courts on Oct 12.

A video clip of the incident, which circulated on social media, showed a woman holding and waving a knife outside the secondary school along Tampines Street 82.

When police officers responded to a call at 6.30pm, she allegedly brandished a knife at the officers before using it to stab herself in the abdomen.

The police said in a news release on Tuesday that despite verbal commands for her to drop the knife, the woman purportedly disregarded the officers’ instructions.

She allegedly “placed the knife on her neck and threatened to harm herself further”.

An officer then used a taser on the woman, the police said. She was eventually subdued by the police and arrested at the scene.

The offence of possessing offensive weapons carries a sentence of up to three years' jail and at least six strokes of the cane.

Under Singapore law, however, women or anyone above the age of 50 cannot be caned.

While the police said in their Tuesday media statement that Juliana will also be investigated by the Central Narcotics Bureau for suspected drug-related offences, she was not handed any drug-related charges on Wednesday.

The police stressed that they have zero tolerance for acts of violence that threaten the safety of the general public and public officers performing their duty.