Man who punched and spat on ex-girlfriend jailed 7 months
He physically abused his ex-girlfriend then prevented her from leaving until she begged to be brought to a hospital due to the pain.
After the girlfriend managed to escape following her medical treatment, he sent three of her compromising images to her sister and threatened to circulate them.
For voluntarily causing hurt and criminal intimidation, the man was sentenced to seven months’ jail on Friday (2 June). Another count of committing a rash act that endangers the personal safety of a person was taken into consideration for sentencing. The man had pleaded guilty to the charges earlier this week.
Both the man, 32, and his girlfriend, 31, cannot be named to protect the woman’s identity.
According to court documents, the couple knew each other since 2000 and started dating in 2014.
Investigations showed that on 5 February, the man approached the girlfriend at her workplace and asked her to talk through their relationship issues with him back at home. The girlfriend complied. When the couple were back at the house at around 5.30pm, the man accused the girlfriend of seeing other men behind his back and the pair got into a heated argument.
The man then took away his girlfriend’s handphone to check her messages and Facebook account. When he could not find any evidence to support his allegations, he threw her handphone at her face in a fit of anger.
He then punched his girlfriend four to five times on her left eye area and spat on her face.
After the attack, he kept the girlfriend in the house by locking the door and refusing to let her near it. The girlfriend was unable to call for help as the man still had her handphone. Crying, the girlfriend pleaded with the man to bring her to the hospital, as she felt pain around her left eye.
He finally relented at 7pm and brought the girlfriend to Ng Teng Fong General Hospital where she received outpatient medical treatment and was given eight days of medical leave. Fearful of the man, the girlfriend did not reveal how she got her injuries to the doctor.
At around 10pm, the man brought the girlfriend back to his block’s void deck where they remained for the night. He refused to let her return to her parents’ house. The girlfriend managed to flee the next morning when the man went to use his flat’s toilet. However, she left her handphone with the man.
A day after the assault, the man started using the girlfriend’s Facebook account on her handphone to send threatening messages to her sister. In the messages, he lied that the girlfriend had used his name to take loans from loansharks. He asked for the sister for $5,000 to settle the “score” and sent three lewd images of the victim, which he had taken earlier in the relationship, to the sister and threatened to circulate them.
He continued messaging the sister throughout the day, suggesting that he would harm the girlfriend and her family’s reputation. He threatened to appear at their house and show them “his crazy side”.
When the girlfriend changed the password of her Facebook account, the man used another account to continue his harassment. The girlfriend lodged a police report that night and police arrested the man at his residence.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Sruthi Boppana called for at least six months’ jail, noting that the man had targeted a vulnerable part of the girlfriend’s body. He had also prevented the girlfriend from leaving and seeking help and the victim had to plead with him to allow her to seek medical aid.
She pointed out that the lewd images sent to the sister had also caused the girlfriend “significant embarrassment” and “tarnished her reputation”. In addition, the man had falsely accused the girlfriend of taking loans from loansharks.
“All of the above incidents stemmed from [the man’s] own misplaced fears that the victim was seeing other men. Jealousy, cannot by any measure justify what [the man] has put the victim through between 5 and 6 February 2017,” said DPP Sruthi, adding that the acts were “uncalled for”.
For criminal intimidation, the man could have been jailed for up to two years and/or fined, while for voluntarily causing hurt, he could have been jailed for up to two years and/or fined a maximum $5,000.
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