Ever since we were younger, we’ve been told to be kind to others and treat others the way you want to be treated. We should always help out the vulnerable and not take advantage of them.

Sadly, this wasn’t what this 38-year-old man did. Instead, he did the opposite.

“He’s Causing Trouble”

On 24 January 2018, Thomas Lee Zhixiong’s company had an opening ceremony for a coffee shop at Block 279 Sengkang East after its management had been taken over. Lee was the consultant of the group and he did paperwork as well as visit the coffee shops under the company to do checks on their operations.

On that day, a 50-year-old man who was injured in the head when he was a child and as a result suffered from developmental delay, mental impairment and scar epilepsy followed Lee around to ask for a job. He was also said to have been tugging onto Lee’s shirt.

Apparently, the man had a history of doing odd jobs for the stall tenants under the previous management, so he probably thought that he would be able to get a job too even under the new management.

Annoyed that he was following him around, Lee turned around and slapped the man hard across his face, causing him to lose his balance and fall backwards. He hit the ground with a loud thud.

Instead of having any remorse, Lee goes on to scold the victim and he left afterwards to smoke. Customers of the coffee shop who witnessed the commotion immediately rushed to the victim’s aid. As anyone would, they wanted to call for an ambulance.

However, Lee urged them not to and said that he would call the Institute of Mental Health instead to bring him away. He even made a bold statement that the victim was just acting.

Yes, definitely. Someone who has just been slapped hard across the face would be pretending like they were in pain. That slap probably didn’t even hurt, according to him. 

He later told some of his staff to move the victim somewhere else because he didn’t want him to disturb his business. He then called IMH and the police, saying that “one mental disorder person here causing trouble”.

See, this would have been quite reasonable if he was legitimately doing something that would be considered harassment, but the poor man was just asking for a job. And to think that he was met with such brutal force…

The victim’s mother heard about the incident and rushed down to the coffee shop to pick up her son, but she realised that her son couldn’t stand by himself. He was simply too weak although he had regained consciousness.

Not wanting to remain there and suffer any more ridicule, she took her son home, only to find him bleeding from his nose, vomiting and suffering from urinary incontinence.

Sensing that something was definitely not right, she took him to the hospital, where he later spent 26 days in the ward before he had to be transferred to a nursing home. And it’s worthy to note that he’s still staying there now.

His Condition Is Unlikely To Improve

According to his medical report, the man suffered a fractured skull and bleeding in his brain, which then caused him to become non-communicative.

Yes, because of this incident, this man is no longer able to go home. He’s no longer able to do the things that he used to be able to do by himself. Daily activities are hard and he can’t balance himself properly. He doesn’t have much safety awareness, which makes it dangerous for him to be alone now.

“I Just Wanted Him To Remember The Lesson Through Pain”

Lee was taken under investigation and he initially denied slapping the victim, but later confessed that he did swing his arm a little hard, with “force larger than normal”.

I mean, the fact that he was able to fracture someone else’s skull already says quite a lot about the amount of force he used.

Perhaps motivated by the saying: “Spare the rod, spoil the child”, he said that he just wanted the victim to “remember the lesson through pain”.

Not The First Time

Apparently, this wasn’t the first time that Lee was involved in a violent situation.

On 22 January 2018, he recognised a Certis CISCO Security compliance officer at the loading and unloading bay of the coffee shop as he was issuing summons. He realised that it was the same officer who previously issued him summons at the same place. He then kicked the officer’s motorcycle to the ground and challenged him to report him to the police.

On 16 June 2018, which was just half a year after the two incidents, he visited a stall at the same coffee shop and demanded to know who cooked his char siew or roasted meat.

He went on a rampage and scolded the cook for the burnt meat. Feeling like his scolding was not enough, he slapped the cook so hard that he hit the corner of a stainless steel cupboard which resulted in a cut on his cheek just below his eye.

The Court Hearing

The prosecutor asked the judge for seven months and two weeks’ jail, especially since the 50-year-old victim was someone vulnerable who was just trying to ask Lee for a job.

According to the prosecutor, he did not even offer to pay for the victim’s medical bills.

“There is public interest to ensure that workplace violence will not be tolerated,” he said.

In response to this, defence lawyers Josephus Tan and Cory Wong of Invictus Law asked for three months’ jail and a fine of $2,300 instead. They justified this by saying that Lee was short-tempered and abused as a child.

Mr Tan continued and said that the victim was the one who behaved inappropriately by following him around. Of course, he did admit that Lee reacted disproportionately.

Lee pleads the judge for some compassion so that he does not have to be sentenced to jail for too long because his third child was just given birth to a few days ago.

The prosecutor countered this and said that these kinds of acts of violence cannot be tolerated especially since it’s against a vulnerable victim.

In the end, the judge couldn’t find any significant mitigating factors, and sentenced Lee to six months and four weeks’ jail.

Lee could have been jailed for a maximum of two years, fined up to $5,000, or both for each charge of voluntarily causing hurt.