SINGAPORE, Jan 25 — A woman who flipped a pot of boiling soup onto a man, causing him to suffer burns to nearly a third of his body, was sentenced to four years’ jail today.
Lim Si Hui, 33, pleaded guilty earlier on January 2 to voluntarily causing grievous hurt by means of a heated substance.
Another charge of voluntarily causing hurt to the same victim by slapping him three times was taken into consideration during sentencing.
Lim and the victim Martin Boey started arguing just before 11pm on April 19 in 2022 after her mobile phone was purportedly damaged by him. Court documents did not state if the two know each other.
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Someone called the police after Lim slapped Boey out of anger at a bar.
They later moved outside the premises to talk things out and Lim went back in later to continue drinking, while Boey left with his girlfriend and two friends to have supper at a hot-pot eatery called Uranus Restaurant along Prinsep Street.
When Lim’s husband arrived at the bar, she told him about what had happened and said that she wanted to confront Boey again.
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Despite her husband’s attempts to stop her, she insisted and left for the restaurant.
At about 11.40pm, she walked into the restaurant where Boey was and flipped a pot of boiling soup onto him.
The soup fell on his lower torso and lower limbs.
Feeling excruciating pain, Boey got up from his chair to try and remove his T-shirt but slipped on the soup contents on the floor and fell.
His girlfriend and friend helped to remove his T-shirt and pulled down his pants and underwear to his lower thighs.
Closed-circuit television footage of the incident, which was shown in court, showed Lim standing by the table, pointing her finger at the victim and speaking angrily.
Boey was taken to the Singapore General Hospital for medical attention where he was found to have sustained 29 per cent of burns to his body and is likely to suffer permanent scarring from the injuries.
He had to undergo four skin grafting sessions and was discharged on May 18 in 2022, about a month after the incident.
He was also seen by psychiatrists for post-traumatic syndrome because of the incident.
For voluntarily causing grievous hurt, Lim could have been given a life imprisonment, or up to 15 years’ jail and caned or fined. — TODAY