SINGAPORE, Dec 3 — In defending himself against a charge of attacking his employee with a dangerous weapon, former Channel 8 actor Ng Aik Leong, better known as Huang Yiliang, said that the employee had intentionally provoked Ng to hit him in order to end his work contract.
This claim came after Ng previously told the court that the pair had an "agreement" that he could hit the Bangladeshi to help the worker improve at work, akin to how a father would cane his child.
Ng allegedly hit Jahidul on the head and scratched his abdomen twice with a metal scraper on December 11, 2018.
He had hired the worker in October that year under a firm called HYL.
Jahidul, 35, had earlier disputed that Ng was play-acting when the assault happened.
Ng, 59, who was not represented by a lawyer, testified yesterday through a Chinese interpreter: “Right from the beginning, he had agreed and he was the one who asked me to hit him.”
He added: “(Jahidul) was very forgetful and wanted me to help him progress.
However, he was faking it as if he were a child… He was waiting for this moment so that he can make use of police resources to stop his contract and leave me.”
Ng mentioned that the worker had done something to anger him on various occasions such as when Jahidul had fetched him a pair of child-sized pants, and said that these were part of the victim’s ploy to provoke him into becoming angry.
The former actor suggested that he was himself the victim, describing the case as a situation of a person holding a weapon with “no intention” and an unarmed person with “intention”.
Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Chong Kee En put it to Ng that his testimony was “ridiculous”.
Ng replied: “From the first day, my stand has not changed. I don’t know why you keep saying that I am ridiculous.”
DPP Chong charged that Ng had hit his worker out of anger and not because of any agreement they had.
He added that Ng was aware of his anger management issues and that he would resort to violence when he got angry. Ng disagreed.
He repeated his claims that he was using “fake punches” during that incident — a move he learnt in his years acting in movies — and that none of the thrusts he made with the scraper landed on Jahidul, so he had no clue how the man got injured.
“Even if I use a machine gun, he won’t be injured because I had no intention of doing so.”
‘I’m very agitated, sorry’
Throughout the proceedings, Ng kept making remarks about the way DPP Chong was asking questions, that he was asking for too many details and was “too particular with the terms”.
District Judge John Ng had to ask him several times to answer the questions directly and not to repeat his points.
When questioned at one point, Ng said to the prosecutor: “You keep testing my English... then the judge keeps scolding me.”
At another moment, Ng burst into a loud reading of a transcript containing several vulgarities that he had allegedly used on his worker even though he was not asked to do so.
This prompted District Judge Ng to warn him that he could be cited for contempt of court and called for a short break for Ng to calm down.
“I’m very agitated, sorry,” Ng told the court.
Before he left Mediacorp in 2008, Ng had won Best Supporting Actor at the annual Star Awards three times.
He was married to fellow Channel 8 actress Lin Meijiao and they have a daughter, actress Chantelle Ng.
The couple divorced in 1997 after six years of marriage.
In 2012, Ng was fined S$3,000 (RM9,129.90) for assaulting a woman who did not clean up the faeces of her dog along a driveway in Toa Payoh.
If found guilty of voluntarily causing hurt with a dangerous weapon, Ng can be jailed up to seven years and fined.
He cannot be caned because he is more than 50 years old. Ng faces a second charge of affray, but it has been stood down or set aside while this trial is ongoing.
Both sides will file closing submissions before returning to court on January 22 next year. — TODAY
