SINGAPORE: A grandmother who punched an 11-year-old boy who hurt her grandson, 9, in a fight has been slapped with a S$10,300 fine.
After the incident, the woman was charged with voluntarily causing hurt and mischief and was also charged under the Protection from Harassment Act.
In 2024, the 64-year-old woman came to Singapore from China to visit her son and his family. Neither the parties nor the condominium where the incident occurred has been named because of the gag order to protect the identities of the minors involved.
On May 30 of that year, her grandson and his sister, 7, came home from the playground at the condominium with bloody wounds on his left leg. The boy told his grandmother that he had gotten into a fight with the older boy, who allegedly hurt him with his bicycle.
The woman then brought the grandson to the other boy’s unit to speak with the boy’s parents. Unfortunately, they were not home, but the boy and the domestic helper were in.
She confronted the boy at the front door of the unit, and this angle meant the incident was caught on CCTV. According to 8world, she asked him why he injured her grandson. However, he denied doing so.
This made the woman angry, and in her agitation, she began swearing at the boy, as well as kicking over his bicycle. Most surprisingly, she punched the 11-year-old in his chest, which resulted in a bruise.
After the incident, the boy’s mother lodged a police report against the older woman.
The woman claimed trial, saying she had not meant to hurt the boy and that she had only slipped and ended up hitting the boy on the chest by accident.
Footage from the CCTV camera, however, showed that the woman’s actions against the boy had been deliberate.
The judge found her guilty of all three charges against her. He slapped a fine of S$7,500 for voluntarily causing hurt, S$800 for mischief, and S$2,000 for violating the Protection from Harassment Act.
She was not given any prison time, even though the prosecution asked for her to be jailed for four to six months, as she had been violent toward a young person, and she had shown no remorse.
However, the judge also pointed out that, based on evidence, the 11-year-old boy had indeed been responsible for hurting her grandson. /TISG
