SINGAPORE - A hawker was fined $3,500 on Thursday (Jan 26) for slapping a nine-year-old boy whom his daughter claimed had been bullying her.
The 47-year-old man, who is not named due to a gag order to protect the children's identity, pleaded guilty to causing hurt while a criminal trespass charge was taken into consideration.
On Oct 7, 2015, the girl woke up at 7.45am and told her mother she did not want to go to school because of the boy who was her classmate.
The mother asked her husband to take their daughter there and along the way, he told the girl that he wanted to talk to the school principal about the matter.
When they reached the school located in the south-western part of Singapore, he told a security guard that he wanted to enter the premises as he wanted to speak to the principal.
Instead of going to the general office, he accompanied his daughter to her classroom on the third storey where a teacher was conducting a music lesson.
The girl pointed her classmate out to her father and the man asked the boy if he had been bullying her.
He then slapped the boy once on his left cheek after the latter denied doing so.
The teacher, who had been standing behind the boy, immediately pulled the child behind her to shield him from his attacker.
Due to the assault, the court heard the boy burst into tears and urinated in his shorts.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Tang Shangjun said: "The accused continued hurling accusations and multiple questions at the victim who, by this time, was crying.
"(The teacher) told the accused to stop, and told the victim not to respond to any of the questions the accused asked of him. The accused then turned to address the class of 40 students, and told them not to bully others, and that they should not behave like gangsters."
The man left the school soon afterwards and the boy's parents were notified.
He was taken to Clementi Polyclinic where he was found to have mild swelling over his left jawline.
For causing hurt, the man could have been jailed up to two years and fined $5,000.
