Cleaner jailed 15 months for stabbing co-worker in stomach
Reuters file photo
SINGAPORE — Unhappy with a colleague’s comment that he could singlehandedly throw him to the ground, a 47-year-old cleaner stabbed the colleague in his stomach.
Yang Changchun was on Monday (July 11) jailed 15 months for one count of causing hurt using a weapon likely to cause death.
The court heard that both Yang and his 45-year-old victim, Zhang Yuekun, are from China and working in the same cleaning company. They also lived in the same house at Jalan Suka in Geylang.
Between 5.30pm and 9pm on January 30, Yang and several others were drinking beer and liquor in the house. Mr Zhang did not join them.
At about 9pm, a man in the drinking group approached Mr Zhang and jokingly said that he could “use one hand to throw (Mr Zhang) onto the ground”, the court heard.
An intoxicated Yang then pushed the man aside, proclaiming that he was the one who could throw Mr Zhang to the ground with one hand.
Mr Zhang rebutted Yang, saying he would do that to him instead.
Enraged, Yang went into the house, got hold of a knife bearing a 10cm blade, and stabbed Mr Zhang once in the stomach.
In the scuffle that ensued, Mr Zhang managed to wrest the knife from Yang and restrain him with the help of two others.
Mr Zhang, who suffered a 1.5cm stab wound, was hospitalised for six days and given medical leave until March 4.
Pressing for a jail sentence of 18 to 24 months, the prosecution said that Yang’s intoxication should not be taken as a mitigating factor.
Yang’s lawyer, pleading for a lighter term of 12 months, said that his offence was not premeditated but committed in a “moment of folly”.
District Judge Luke Tan said that Yang’s sentence has to reflect that one cannot go around stabbing others over trivial matters. However, he noted that Yang’s clean track record suggested that his conduct that night was “out of character”.
Yang, who has been remanded since Feb 1, could have been jailed for seven years and/or fined and/or caned.
