Man pleads guilty to hurting woman with kitchen knife

SINGAPORE - A 23-year-old man who felt very stressed attacked a woman with a kitchen knife in September last year so that he would feel happy.

On Tuesday (March 23), the man pleaded guilty to one count of voluntarily causing hurt to the woman with the 31cm-long kitchen knife at the car park near Block 412, Choa Chu Kang Avenue 3.

He has been in remand since the incident.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Ng Jun Chong said the man felt very stressed while he was at home that day and thought of "doing something bad" so that he could feel better. He had been off anti-psychotic medication for three days.

He took a knife with a 17cm blade from the kitchen and left home.

At the car park, he made eye contact with the woman, who was walking towards him, and took the knife out from behind him.

Seeing this, the woman, who did not know him, ran away but he gave chase.

While running, she tripped and fell. The man approached her and slashed her head and body repeatedly while she tried to block the blows.

Despite her injuries, she managed to get up and flee, screaming for help while he pursued her.

An off-duty police officer who was in his flat heard her screaming and saw the man running after her with a knife.

He rushed downstairs, borrowed a hoe from a construction site nearby and approached the man in the carpark.

When the police officer told the man to put the knife down, he shouted "why" and started slashing his own forearm with the knife.

With the help of members of the public, the police officer disarmed the man and tied him up with a rope.

Police officers who arrived at the scene noted that the woman was in visible distress and had dried blood on her face. She suffered multiple lacerations and abrasions on her head and body.

Psychiatric assessment by the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) found that the man had a psychotic disorder but "he was not so psychotic as to have abdicated his mental capacity to know right from wrong".

The IMH report dated October last year added that the man is at risk of acting violently towards others and is unlikely to be compliant with psychiatric treatment if left to his own devices.

District Judge May Mesenas asked for the man to undergo another medical examination so as to better understand his medical condition and if it contributed to his offences.

His lawyers, Mr Josephus Tan and Mr Cory Wong from Invictus Law Corporation, said that when they visited him in Changi Prison, he had been taking his medication.

Those convicted of voluntarily causing hurt with a deadly weapon can face up to seven years' jail, fined and caned.