Man nabbed for assaulting hotel employee

SINGAPORE - A 31-year-old man was arrested last Friday night after he allegedly assaulted an employee of Conrad Centennial Singapore in front of the hotel's main entrance, and had to be pinned down by hotel staff when he tried to escape.

The police and the Singapore Civil Defence Force were alerted to the scuffle just before 8.30pm.

The victim, a 32-year-old Singaporean woman who works as a duty manager at the hotel, was conscious when she was taken to Singapore General Hospital after she complained of neck pains.

A hotel spokesman confirmed that the incident occurred, and added that the man was not an employee or a guest of the hotel.

The Sunday Times has learnt that the man, a former boyfriend of a receptionist at the hotel, had come by to look for her.

When the duty manager told him that she was not around, he allegedly turned violent on her.

A witness, Mr Bryden Toh, said he was attending a dinner at the hotel ballroom when he stepped out to make a phone call.

"I saw a Caucasian man. He just walked up to one of the hotel staff standing at the door, held her neck, and pushed her into the middle of the road," he said.

"He banged her head on the ground. The other hotel staff shouted at him, asking him to stop."

As he tried to escape, two security guards tried to hold him back, but they struggled as he was "very tall and muscular", added Mr Toh, who is in his 40s.

Mr Toh eventually helped the guards to hold down the man while they waited for the police to arrive.

He said the man, dressed in a long-sleeved shirt, was bleeding. "I saw blood on his hands and face."

Ms Farishah Ramlee, 23, a bartender at Outback Steakhouse across the road, was serving tables when she saw a group of about five people chasing the man and pinning him down.

"The guy was shouting 'help me, help me' and 'let me go'," she said.

The police have classified the case as one of voluntarily causing grievous hurt and a rash act. Investigations are ongoing.

This article was first published on June 15, 2014.
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