CEO who punched police officer in Sentosa Cove gets jail

CEO who punched police officer in Sentosa Cove gets jail
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SINGAPORE – The chief executive of an e-commerce services firm was at a friend’s home in Sentosa Cove when he assaulted a policeman who had turned up following complaints about noise at the gathering.

South Korean Kim Sun Ho, 40, who is also a director and shareholder at Makers Farm, was jailed for 10 weeks on Friday (Nov 4) after he pleaded guilty to voluntarily causing hurt to a public servant.

Shortly before committing the offence in the wee hours of Feb 20, he had been consuming alcohol at the gathering in Ocean Drive.

Noise made by the guests prompted members of the public to alert a Sentosa Cove security officer, who turned up to look into the matter.

The officer noticed that Kim was intoxicated, and behaving in an uncooperative and rowdy manner.

The officer called the police, and Special Constabulary Sergeant (1) Harith Syahmi Safarudin and his colleagues arrived at the scene at around 3.15am.

Deputy Public Prosecutor R. Arvindren said: “During the check, the accused came out of a bedroom to look for one of his female companions.

“The accused stumbled into the… patio, where his female companions were, and nearly fell into (a) swimming pool in his intoxicated state. The victim pulled the accused’s arm to prevent him from falling into the swimming pool.”

Kim then turned around, told Special Constabulary Sgt (1) Harith to “shut up”, and punched the 21-year-old’s left cheek.

The DPP added that Kim tried to punch the victim’s face again but was immediately restrained by two other police officers.

He was arrested, and during investigations admitted that he drank multiple glasses of whiskey and champagne before the assault.

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Special Constabulary Sgt (1) Harith, who suffered a bruise on his left cheek, went to Alexandra Hospital and was given two days of medical leave.

Kim was represented by lawyers Adrian Wee, Lynette Chang and Takehiro Miyoshi.

In his mitigation plea, Mr Wee asked for Kim to be given not more than seven weeks’ jail, stressing that the incident involved his client’s first brush with the law in Singapore.

Mr Wee, who is from Characterist law firm, added: “Shortly after the incident took place, our client made efforts to seek the victim out in an attempt to apologise to him, but could not locate the victim.

“As such, our client has personally expressed his sincere apologies in a letter which has been presented to the prosecution to be placed before the victim.”

For assaulting a public servant, an offender can be jailed for up to seven years, fined, caned or receive any combination of such punishments.

This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.

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