SINGAPORE, April 23 — Angered that a male youth had been harassing his female friend, an 18-year-old youth gathered four friends to help him beat up the victim at a public toilet.
Using the girl’s Instagram account to lure the 17-year-old male to meet them, the offender and his friends assaulted the victim and threatened him with a parang, a type of knife. They also forced him to strip naked and drink urine.
A court gag order bans identifying the offenders and victim as they were aged under 18 years old at the time of the offence.
Today, the 18-year-old pleaded guilty to one charge of rioting and being armed with a deadly weapon, and one charge of criminal intimidation.
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District Judge Kessler Soh called for reports to assess the teen’s suitability for probation and reformative training.
Reformative training is a regime where young offenders are detained at a reformative training centre and undergo required rehabilitation programmes.
Probation, on the other hand, does not result in a recorded criminal conviction and allows young offenders to keep up their education or employment while serving their sentences.
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The offender will return to court on June 18 for sentencing.
Court documents did not indicate the status of the cases involving the four other co-accused persons, who are currently aged 16 to 18 years of age.
Forced victim to strip naked, drink urine
Some time in March last year, the offender met up with four of his friends and told them that he wanted to beat up the victim as the victim had been harassing his female friend.
He told his friends that he would use the girl’s Instagram account to lure the victim into meeting him and asked the four friends to accompany him. They agreed.
On March 16, 2023, the teen messaged the victim using the girl’s Instagram account.
Posing as the girl, he asked the victim to meet him at the rooftop toilet of a multi-storey car park in Bukit Batok for sex. The victim agreed to the meeting.
On March 20, the teen and his friends met up at the car park. The offender was carrying a blue haversack containing a parang, which he told his friends that he intended to use to scare the victim.
The teen also asked two of his friends to urinate into a bottle, which they did.
The offender then hid in the toilet while his friends waited at a staircase nearby.
At about 6.30pm, the victim arrived at the car park.
He spoke to one of the teen’s friends, who was his schoolmate, before heading to the rooftop toilet.
When the victim knocked on the toilet door, the offender opened the door and pulled him inside. His friends also followed the victim into the toilet.
The offender placed the parang on the victim’s neck and threatened to cut him. He also accused the victim of wanting to have sex with the girl.
The offender then began smoking and ordered the victim to strip naked.
He told the victim that if he was not naked before he finished the cigarette, he would slash him with the parang. The victim obeyed as he was scared.
While the victim was stripping, the offender ordered the victim to look in the direction of his phone’s camera as he recorded a video.
After the victim had stripped, the teen then ordered the victim to kneel before him. The teen punched the victim on the face – twice on his left side, and once on the right.
The teen also kneed the victim once on the face, causing the victim’s eyes to swell up.
While the victim was still naked and kneeling, the offender ordered the victim to apologise to the girl and recorded a video of him doing so. One of his friends also recorded a video.
The offender then slapped the side of the victim’s face using the flat side of the parang, and put the tip of the parang into the victim’s mouth.
He continued shouting at the victim for “harassing” the girl, while the victim repeatedly apologised.
The teen also passed the victim the bottle containing his friends’ urine and told him to drink it. Afraid, the victim drank from the bottle despite knowing it was urine.
The offender also filmed the victim doing so, with the intention of forwarding the video to his female friend, to injure the victim’s reputation.
The offender then placed the parang on the victim’s left shoulder and glided it down, which resulted in linear marks on the victim’s left chest. He also instructed the victim not to move or he would be cut deeper.
One of the teen’s friends also punched and kicked the victim a few times on his body. The teen then ordered the victim to get dressed, and they all left the toilet.
The offender threatened the victim, saying he had the victim’s house address and that if he reported the matter to the police, he would attack him again. The victim agreed not to report the matter.
After the incident, the teen showed the videos he had recorded of the victim to his friends, and also forwarded the clips to his female friend.
The offender and his friend who earlier also filmed a video both later deleted these clips as they feared that they would be caught by the police.
When the victim returned home at about 9.20pm that night, his father noticed his injuries. The man took his son to the National University Hospital (NUH) the next day, and later lodged a police report.
The NUH medical report stated that the victim suffered from bruises on his left eye, left cheek, and lip. He was also noted to have scratches around the left side of his face and on his scalp.
On March 22, the offender and his friends were identified via police camera footage, and arrested. The parang was also recovered from the offender’s house.
The youth’s mother was granted permission to speak to the offender briefly before he was remanded for the purposes of the reformative training report.
For being part of an unlawful assembly whose common objective was to voluntarily cause hurt to the victim with a dangerous weapon, the teen could be jailed for up to 10 years and caned.
For threatening the victim and forcing him to strip, drink urine, and filming that act with the intent of causing injury to the victim’s reputation, the teen could be jailed for up to two years, fined, or both. — TODAY