Singapore — A 23-year-old man pleaded guilty on Tuesday (March 23) to one count of voluntarily causing hurt with a dangerous weapon.
On Sept 29 last year, Neo Hong Wei felt very stressed and thought of “doing something bad”. He also thought he might feel better if he committed a crime.
He then took a kitchen knife with a 17cm-long blade from his kitchen and left home.
At around noon, he came across Ms Ong Hui Xian at an open-air car park near Block 412 Choa Chu Kang Avenue 3. She had been walking towards Lot One Shoppers’ Mall when Neo approached her and brandished the knife he was holding.
He chased her and when she tripped and fell, he swung the knife at her head and body repeatedly, slashing her as she tried to block the blows.
Neo also slashed his own forearm in a car park.
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During this episode, Neo had been off his medication for psychotic disorder for three days.
Videos of the incident went viral online. In a video posted on Facebook page ROADS.sg, Neo could be heard shouting, “Why?” before slashing his forearm, sustaining two superficial cuts.
A police officer who was off-duty at the time, Third Sergeant Ezekiel Letchumanan K Saminadan, borrowed a hoe from a nearby construction site and approached Neo, identifying himself as a police officer and telling him to put the knife down.
Sgt Ezekiel and some construction workers nearby managed to disarm Neo and subdue him.
In court on Tuesday, Dr Stephen Phang of the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) said that if left to his own devices, Neo was unlikely to comply with prescribed psychiatric treatment, a report by TODAY Online said.
He was not of unsound mind at the time and his capacity to exercise the right judgment “may have been attenuated by virtue of his acute psychotic state”, the psychiatrist added.
Dr Phang further found that Neo “represents a significant risk of further interpersonal violence and dangerousness towards others at present”.
Neo will return to court on April 5 and could be jailed for up to seven years, fined, caned, or receive any combination of the three. /TISG