Yishun assault trial: Deceased didn’t listen to mother’s advice to stay away from friend’s home, court hears

SINGAPORE — When Shawn Ignatius Rodrigues’ mother told him not to go to his friend Ryan Xavier Tay’s flat and “disturb” him, Rodrigues would simply say “okay” or not listen to her.

Ms Cornelia Francis also described two alleged incidents between the two friends — one where Rodrigues lost his tooth after Tay supposedly hit him with his knee, and one where Tay hit him with a bat while Tay’s mother sprayed Rodrigues in the face with an unknown substance.

Ms Francis told the court this while taking the witness stand for the first time in the ongoing trial of Tay, now 24, and his stepfather Lawrence Lim Peck Beng, now 58.

The two men are accused of assaulting Rodrigues, then a 26-year-old full-time national serviceman, so violently on July 9, 2016 that he eventually died at the scene from traumatic asphyxia with a head injury.

The former Republic Polytechnic student was found tied up with raffia string on the sixth floor lift lobby landing of Block 279, Yishun Street 22 — where Tay and Lim live.

A total of 59 police reports had been made against Rodrigues for harassing Tay’s family, who lived close by. The two young men knew each other from church and were close friends before falling out, the court heard previously.

Neighbours earlier testified that Rodrigues had been loitering around Tay’s block from 2014 onwards.

While Rodrigues’ psychiatrist did not formally diagnose him, she found that his oddities of speech and demeanour were suggestive of Asperger’s Syndrome and obsessive compulsive disorder.

TOOTH WAS ‘HALF-HANGING’

On Monday, Ms Francis took the stand for about half an hour as a prosecution witness. The Rodrigues family lived in a block of flats about a 30-minute walk from Tay’s.

Upon questioning by prosecutors, the mother of four testified that she called the police on June 23, 2015 after Rodrigues told her that Tay had beaten him up. Rodrigues had returned home bleeding, one of his teeth “half-hanging”.

Tay’s friend had held Rodrigues down while Tay hit him in the lips with his knee, Rodrigues told her. She did not know how many other friends were there because he did not say more.

Rodrigues made a police report seven days later. His loose tooth was later removed by a dentist.

The court previously heard that in August 2015, Tay and a group of his friends allegedly beat him up so badly that he lost two of his front teeth. He did not make a police report over this incident.

In another incident, Ms Francis said that she found a bruise on her son’s arm. Only then did he tell her that Tay had hit him with a bat while Tay’s mother sprayed him in the face with something.

This was also what Rodrigues confided in his psychotherapist, Dr Nisha Rani.

About two weeks ago, Dr Rani testified that she had told Rodrigues to be careful of the escalating physical abuse he was facing from the Tay family and to stop visiting them. But he told her that on the morning of July 9, 2016, he had gone to the block of flats opposite Tay’s every single day of that week.

Ms Francis similarly told the court that she had advised her son not to keep showing up at Tay’s flat, but he would not listen.

When questioned by Lim’s lawyer Ang Sin Teck, she added that during mediation sessions in the community court, a court officer had told Rodrigues to stop going to Tay’s flat, too. Both parties had attended the sessions between February and May 2016.

Mr Ang told Ms Francis: “I’m instructed that when the court officer told him not to go, he said ‘for now’.”

Ms Francis, a housewife who has a Primary 4-level education, said that she did not know of this.

She also testified that she could not remember if she asked Rodrigues what had prompted the alleged attacks on him, or how many times he went to Tay’s place.

The trial continues next week. Tay and Lim remain out on bail.