A group of three punched and kicked a man repeatedly and attacked him with a foldable chair, causing a facial fracture, a court heard yesterday.

One of the three, driver Abdul Halil Osman, 31, was jailed for nine months after he admitted causing grievous hurt to Mr Muhammad Abdul Latip in a common corridor of a HDB block in Bukit Batok on Jan 27 this year.

The case against his wife, Siti Norhaizah Abdullah, 30, and Rahmat Jumari, 28, is in the pre-trial conference stage.

The court heard that Rahmat was in a relationship with Siti. Mr Muhammad was previously in a relationship with her.

Investigations showed that at about 6.30am on Jan 27, Abdul Halil, Siti and Rahmat went to Mr Muhammad's home in Bukit Batok West Avenue 4.

Their intention was to help Siti take back her daughter, who had been living with Mr Muhammad and his mother.

The group waited at the void deck for 11/2 hours before going up to the victim's unit.

Siti knocked on the door of Mr Muhammad's unit and asked to see her daughter, while her husband and Rahmat waited nearby.

When Siti and Mr Muhammad started arguing, her husband went over.

Rahmat joined them and punched Mr Muhammad on the neck a few times.

Abdul Halil then used the chair to hit the victim, while Rahmat kicked him.

Mr Muhammad fell to the ground, but the three continued punching, and kicking him, as well as hitting him with the chair.

One of them then tore off Mr Muhammad's clothes and Siti used Rahmat's mobile phone to take several photographs of Mr Muhammad lying naked on the floor.

Mr Muhammad later managed to get up and return home. He was taken to Ng Teng Fong General Hospital for treatment.

Among his injuries was a non-displaced fracture of the right frontal sinus. He was discharged four days later and given hospitalisation leave of two weeks.

Abdul Halil was arrested two days later in Bukit Batok Street 31.

In mitigation, he told District Judge Wong Li Tein that he wanted to apologise.

The father of five could have been jailed for up to 10 years, fined or caned for voluntarily causing grievous hurt.