SINGAPORE - The actions of an 18-year-old, who beat up smaller foreign workers to practise his martial arts skills and even taunted them, was described as "completely unacceptable" by Law and Foreign Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam on Wednesday.

On Monday, Daryl Lim Jun Liang was given a short detention order of 10 days by a district judge for attacking two foreign workers last year. He was also ordered to report to a supervision officer every day and remain indoors from 10pm to 6am for a year, and has to perform 150 hours of community service.

Speaking at the sidelines of an event by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr Shanmugam said: "(The foreign workers) have come here and are helping us build our infrastructure. Instead of being grateful to them, and recognising that they're doing a hard job... to help their families, we go and attack them, it's bullying of somebody who's vulnerable. It's sickening conduct..."

The Minister also wrote about it on his Facebook page, adding: "I hope that people who think and behave like Daryl are a tiny minority."

Last year, Lim, together with two 15-year-old friends and another who is 18, had in separate incidents targeted a Chinese and an Indian worker, because they were smaller and deemed less likely to fight back. Lim even mocked the victims by dancing in front of them and pushed one on the head.

The prosecution has filed a notice of appeal against Lim's sentence.