Man gets jail for fighting with fellow coffee shop patron who was stuck in toilet

SINGAPORE: A man who was accidentally locked inside a coffee shop toilet for 20 minutes was upset with the owner of the shop when he got out.

A bystander who was at the coffee shop stepped forward to calm the man down, but the pair wound up fighting.

The bystander, 60-year-old Yieh Kan Wah, was sentenced to 12 weeks' jail on Tuesday (Nov 22) for one count of voluntarily causing hurt. Another two charges were taken into consideration.

The court heard that Yieh was with a group of friends at a coffee shop at Block 1, Beach Road on Apr 21 last year.

The victim, a 63-year-old man, was also there with his friends.

At about 9.15pm, the victim went to the washroom in the coffee shop. However, he was accidentally locked inside.

He was let out only about 20 minutes later, and expressed his unhappiness towards the owner of the coffee shop.

Yieh, who was sitting two tables away, stepped forward to try and calm the victim down.

However, the two men began arguing. Yieh grew agitated and passed his mobile phone to his friend before approaching the victim.

The two men began scuffling, with Yieh punching the victim's face twice before someone else separated them. The victim's nose began to bleed, but Yieh continued to advance towards him, picking up a glass beer bottle as he did so.

The two men were kept apart from each other, and Yieh began to retreat with the beer bottle, but the victim started to approach him.

Yieh dropped the bottle, which shattered on the ground. Yieh picked up a fragment of the broken glass bottle intending to strike the victim with it when the victim approached him.

When the victim lurched towards Yieh, Yieh hit his face with the glass fragment, leaving a 7cm-long laceration on the victim's face.

The victim fell onto a few red plastic chairs before falling to the ground. Yieh continued to assault him until Yieh's friend pulled him away.

The acts were captured by closed-circuit television cameras.

The victim went to hospital with bruising and multiple facial lacerations which required surgery.

He incurred a total of S$968.55 in medical expenses. Yieh paid S$970 to him as compensation.

The prosecutor asked for at least 16 weeks' jail, saying that Yieh had used dangerous means to cause harm to the victim and aimed at a vulnerable part of his body.

However, she took into account the fact that the victim was also aggressive.

Lawyer Anil Singh Sandhu asked for six weeks' jail instead. He said the victim was agitated when he was released and continued exhibiting his unhappiness by shouting at the top of his voice.

Because of this, it was difficult for Yieh and his friends to continue talking, he said.

He claimed that the victim, who was bigger in build than Yieh, uttered Hokkien vulgarities targeting Yieh's mother when Yieh tried to calm the victim down.

The defence lawyer said Yieh was contrite and remorseful and dipped into his "already depleted savings" to compensate the victim.