SINGAPORE, March 22 — A woman who drove off with an angry cyclist on her car bonnet in Katong after an altercation between the pair claimed that she had done so as a “defence mechanism” to move away, her lawyer said in court today.
Last month, Elaine Michele Ow, 50, pleaded guilty to one charge of a rash act endangering the safety of Nicolette Tan Shi-en, the 32-year-old cyclist.
Tan is due to face court over the same incident next month.
Ow was due to have been sentenced on Friday, but the judge adjourned this until April 16 after the defence disputed the accuracy of the prosecution’s record of her prior traffic offences.
A 39-second video capturing the confrontation went viral on social media after the incident on June 2, last year. It showed Tan obstructing Ow’s car along East Coast Road, near the junction of Joo Chiat Road.
A court heard in February that the two women had gotten into a heated verbal exchange as Ow, a cooking instructor, was trying to go to her cooking class.
During the clash, Ow had apologised to Tan after the cyclist complained that Ow had driven too close to her bicycle.
In the ensuing dispute, Ow’s car inched forward, hitting Tan’s bicycle. In response, Tan allegedly hit Ow’s car.
At some point Ow alighted from her car, explaining that she had a class to teach and carried Tan’s bicycle to the pavement.
Tan allegedly obstructed Ow’s car while the driver kept inching forward and came into contact with Tan’s legs, prompting Tan to jump on the car bonnet and lie there.
After that, Ow uttered “okay” to herself and accelerated through the cross-junction with Tan still lying on the bonnet, holding a windscreen wiper with one hand and banging on the windscreen with the other.
Ow drove for about 100m.
The incident was captured by the in-car camera of Ow and partly recorded by Tan’s bicycle camera.
Driver disputes past offences
Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Mark Chia told the court that the woman had various driving-related offences, including a drink-driving conviction in 2006, failing to conform to a red light signal in 2021 and multiple offers of composition paid for parking across a continuous white line.
Ow disputed that she was the driver for four of the parking-related offences, stating through her lawyer that she recalled her sister or husband had been driving on those occasions.
District Judge Janet Wang adjourned Ow’s sentencing to enable the prosecution to clarify these facts as she said a conviction history would have an impact on the sentence in traffic-related offences.
The prosecution had sought a short detention for the woman. A short detention order is a community-based sentence that requires the offender to be detained in prison for not more than 14 days.
The woman’s lawyer, Mr R S Bajwa from law firm Bajwa and Co, argued that the case had “very unique” circumstances and that a high fine would be sufficient.
He added that the “clang of the prison gate” and “experience of prison life” faced by his client under a short detention order would be “unwarranted” in this case.
This was not an “everyday” occurrence where the court should send a signal to other would-be offenders, he said.
Mr Bajwa referred to medical reports he had submitted from Changi General Hospital and a private psychiatrist, which highlighted Ow’s history of depression.
He argued that while Ow was able to “contain her emotions” during her verbal exchange with the cyclist, she started to panic when she reversed her car and was horned at by other motorists.
Her “defence mechanism was to move away”, the lawyer said, in response to the “overwhelming” situation of being harassed, asserting that the cyclist was the “aggressor” in the situation and not his client.
District Judge Wang asked if there was a “causal link” between her depression diagnosis and the rash act she had committed that day.
The woman’s lawyer replied that he would not go as far to say that she was suffering from depression while she was driving away.
However, Ow’s history and “shocked and panicked” state did leave her more likely to have a “flight” instead of “fight” response to the situation.
When Mr Bajwa asked the judge to put herself in the shoes of her client at the time, District Judge Wang responded quickly, “No, I would not act that way”.
The judge added that a “reasonable” person would have stopped to call the police.
As to an appropriate sentence, Mr Bajwa argued that his client was not a “suitable candidate for incarceration”, and stated that a high fine or a day-long short detention order would be sufficient.
He also argued that there was “no harm” caused to the cyclist, as there was “no indication” that the muscle strain the cyclist had suffered were from Ow’s actions or from her own actions of jumping on the bonnet.
In response, the judge said that the discomfort felt by Tan had come from the “entire chain of events”.
A court heard in February that Tan was diagnosed by a doctor to have suffered muscle strains on her neck, shoulder and hip.
In response, DPP Chia said that the driver’s medical report did not disclose a “contributory link” between her psychiatric diagnosis and her offences, and that the woman would still have had the “presence of mind” to appreciate her actions.
Ow will return to court for sentencing on April 16, while Tan is expected to plead guilty on April 17 over the same incident. TODAY is seeking details of the charge or charges she is facing.
Anyone who commits a rash act can be jailed for up to six months or be fined up to S$2,500, or receive both punishments. — TODAY
