SINGAPORE, Jan 19 — A 54-year-old woman was jailed for one week and fined S$5,000 (RM15,526) yesterday for insulting a hospital doctor, as well as hitting and trying to bite an auxiliary police officer, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
Wang Xuyi, a Singaporean, was convicted late last year after a trial. She had claimed that she did not know her words were insulting and was unaware of what “crazy” in Mandarin meant.
In court yesterday, she indicated her intention to file an appeal. District Judge Lau Qiuyu deferred her jail sentence until February 3 and told her to take the time to think about it.
Wang, who remains unrepresented by a lawyer, was found guilty of two charges of using insulting words towards the doctor at Changi General Hospital (CGH) on the evening of May 16, 2020. The country was in the midst of a circuit breaker period at the time, which limited movements and activities due to the pandemic.
She also contested one charge each of causing hurt and trying to cause hurt to an auxiliary police officer that day.
She caused a ruckus at CGH after refusing further testing and asking for antibiotics. She then barged into a consultation room where her doctor was seeing another patient.
Wang told the female doctor, among other things, that she was stupid before leaving the room.
Court documents did not indicate what kind of treatment she was seeking at CGH.
Later, she made a scene at the hospital admissions counter and said among other things to the same doctor, “Ni shen jing bing” (“You are crazy” in Chinese).
Three auxiliary police officers then decided to escort Wang out of the hospital. As they were doing so, Wang retrieved her phone with the apparent intention of filming them.
Despite several warnings from the officers, she raised her phone to record them, which was prohibited in the area. The officers then raised their hands over her phone to cover the camera lens.
During the struggle, Wang hit one of the auxiliary officers, Nurul Neeza Mohd Jumain, forcefully on her left shoulder at least three times.
The officers then let Wang sit on a nearby bench but she then pulled down her face mask and lunged at Neeza’s arm in a bid to bite it. Neeza managed to avoid the assault by immediately releasing her grip on Wang.
This incident was captured by closed-circuit television cameras at CGH’s accident and emergency department.
In his written submissions, Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Eugene Teh said Wang had claimed during the trial that she did not hit Neeza despite her actions being clearly captured on video. She also argued that her raised arms were “just a movement, not hitting people”.
She further alleged that the officers had surrounded and attacked her, making her feel bullied and helpless, and that one of the male officers had molested her when they tussled.
In court yesterday, she repeated this allegation, to which the judge said that she had already given her verdict.
At one point in the trial, DPP Teh had put to Wang that “stupid” was an insulting word, to which she replied: “I do not know about this before this. But now I have learnt this.”
The prosecutor also asked if she knew what “shen jing bing” was. She responded, “I’m not too sure”, even though she had used the Chinese phrase.
For voluntarily causing hurt, she could have been jailed for up to three years or fined up to S$5,000, or punished with both.
She could also have been jailed for up to a year or fined up to S$5,000, or both, for harassment. — TODAY
