Ferrari driver, 72, found guilty of punching man in road incident
A 72-year-old woman, who first made the news due to a dispute over a tree outside her house, has been found guilty of punching a younger man in a separate incident.
Singaporean Shi Ka Yee, an architect, was convicted on Thursday (17 August) of voluntarily causing hurt to Raphael Chong Yen Ping, 39, on 25 February 2014 along Telok Ayer Street.
During the trial in June this year, Chong told the court that he had been waiting for a parking space along Telok Ayer Street when Shi pulled up beside him in a red Ferrari and started honking at him. Shi asked Chong to move his car but Chong told her that there was enough space for her car to pass.
Shi later exited her car and snapped photos of both their vehicles. Chong, who was in his car, had told Shi, “Don’t blame me if you are a lousy driver.” She responded by punching Chong’s face, which resulted in a cut above his right eyebrow.
Shi’s lawyer Irving Choh argued that his client had only slapped Chong after he insulted her. District Judge Chay Yuen Fatt noted, however, that Shi had admitted to punching Chong in her statement to the police.
Six separate charges
Shi also faces six separate charges for offences committed in 2015 and 2016. These have not been dealt with by the court.
The 2015 offences relate to a dispute over a rain tree that grew from Shi’s home in Astrid Hill.
On 17 February 2015, Shi allegedly trespassed into her neighbour Nasrat Lucas Muzayyin’s bungalow and removed an ignition key from a crane, immobilising it and trapping a worker in the crane’s bucket for more than an hour.
Muzayyin had hired the worker to prune the rain tree, which had branches towering over his premises. She was charged with one count of criminal trespass and one count of wrongful confinement for her alleged actions.
She is also accused of hurling expletives at Muzayyin and allegedly telling him, “You cut my tree, my tree is living thing, I hope your kids die.”
Shi also faces one charge of committing a rash act that endangered Muzayyin’s life by moving her sports car towards him while he stood in front of her car asking for the crane’s keys to be returned.
Last July, a High Court judge made Shi pay Muzayyin $9,800 in damages and ordered her to have the rain tree pruned.
In a separate incident on 29 June 2016, Shi allegedly stopped her Ferrari in the middle of a road in front of a tour bus in Orchard Road and blocked off three out of five lanes, causing a traffic jam. She faces a charge of obstructing traffic for the incident.
Shi also faces one charge of harassing another driver – Wu Xiaokui – who had honked at her, by saying, “You should return to China if you want to sound your vehicle honk.”
No sentencing date has been set for Shi yet. For voluntarily causing hurt, she could be jailed up to two years, fined up to $5,000, or both.
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