‘I will dig out your eyeballs’: Teen girl admits to separately assaulting two girls in one night

SINGAPORE — In the wee hours of Dec 17 last year, Joyce Goh Kok Tin and several friends beat a girl up over relationship issues, punching her in the face and lips.

Goh also forced the teenaged victim to “kowtow” to a 22-year-old man, because the other girl had chosen to date someone else instead of him.

Barely four hours later, Goh crashed a birthday party at a condominium in East Coast area and assaulted her co-worker, who she felt was slow and lazy.

She told the 15-year-old girl: “I will dig out your eyeballs and put them in your bare hands. Then I’ll cut your nose off and dig out your intestine with my hands down your throat and any other organs I can grab. Then I’ll pluck off your nails one by one and skin you alive.”

On Tuesday (Dec 3), Goh — who turned 18 about a week ago — pleaded guilty in a district court to two counts of rioting and causing grievous hurt with common intention. Another similar charge will be taken into consideration for sentencing next week.

She was remanded so that reports to assess if she is suitable for probation or reformative training can be prepared. Reformative training is a regimented rehabilitation programme for offenders under the age of 21 who commit relatively serious crimes. Unlike reformative training, probation does not stand as a criminal conviction on record. Being on probation allows the offender to continue with their work while serving their sentence.

In mitigation, Goh's lawyer Ng Kwong Loong from Populus Law Corporation asked the court to give her a chance as she was young and a first-time offender.

She had been with "bad company”, Mr Ng said, and was more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and outside pressures due to her young age.

“I was instructed by my client’s father that Joyce had anger management issues when she was in secondary school. She saw a school counsellor but counselling stopped when she dropped out of school,” he added.

SPOTTED WITH NEW BOYFRIEND

The court heard that Goh bore grudges against her first victim because her ex-boyfriend began dating her after breaking up with Goh.

The other girl also got together with an 18-year-old boy instead of the 22-year-old, which made Goh feel like she was toying with the spurned man’s feelings.

At about 1.30am, six of Goh’s friends, including the 22-year-old, were driving past a block of flats in Yishun and spotted the other girl and her new boyfriend at the void deck.

Goh took a taxi there after receiving a call about this from her friends and confronted the victim, punching her in the face.

This triggered a scuffle and two of Goh’s friends began kicking and punching the new boyfriend, kicking his electric scooter and pulling some wires out from its motherboard.

Later, Goh proceeded to grab the victim’s face and pushed her head to the ground, forcing her to kneel and place her forehead on the ground in front of the 22-year-old man.

Before she left, Goh punched the victim on the lips, leaving her with a cut there.

TOLD FRIEND TO PUNCH VICTIM HARDER

At about 3am, Goh’s second victim was at a birthday party with two other girls.

When Goh saw an Instagram Story of the party that her friend had taken, she recognised the victim as they both worked as packers in the same firm. Goh did not like her because she thought the girl was a slow and lazy worker.

Along with three friends, Goh went to the party and confronted the victim at the condominium's swimming pool.

She began slapping the other girl, grabbed her hair, punched her and pulled her to the ground, before using her elbows and knees to assault her.

The other girls joined in and sat on her when she was face-down on the ground. Goh then flicked her cigarette onto the victim’s neck.

They eventually moved to the back of the condominium to avoid a security guard, who had heard the commotion.

Goh asked the victim to stand in front of a wall, before punching and pushing her head several times against it. Goh also told her friend to punch the victim harder after her nose began to bleed.

They stopped assaulting her when she lay motionless on the ground. Goh pulled her up and told her that she would dig her eyeballs out.

At this point, the birthday girl’s mother noticed what was happening and rushed over. The group lied that the victim was already badly injured when they found her, and she had been screaming from their attempts to clean her wounds.

The victim went to KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital where she was found to have suffered a broken nose, multiple bruises and abrasions.

She was given about two weeks of medical leave, and referred to a plastic surgeon and dentist for her injuries.