Actions of teen who assaulted foreign workers ‘sickening’

SINGAPORE — The actions of 18-year-old Daryl Lim, who was sentenced on Monday (April 20) to 10 days of detention and 150 hours of community service for assaulting foreign workers with his friends, are unacceptable and sickening, said Law and Foreign Affairs Minister K Shanmugam.

“To think that a young man who has benefited from the system can act with such cruelty, without compassion, without empathy and without any kind of consideration,” he said on the sidelines of the 7th Meeting of Singa­pore Honorary Consuls-General at Shangri-La Hotel today.

Lim was involved in four such incidents in September and October last year. On Oct 3, he met three of this friends, hoping to practice their fighting skills by assaulting foreign workers. They chanced upon 48-year-old Chinese national Zuo Yu Nian, and Lim, together with a 15-year-old accomplice, who cannot be named because of a gag order, repeatedly punched Mr Zuo in the face and mouth before fleeing.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Nicholas Lai had sought a stint for Lim at the Reformative Training Centre, which would have lasted for at least 18 months. But District Judge Lim Keng Yeow said reformative training was unnecessary, given Lim’s age and that this was his first offence. He added that probation officers had also assessed the likelihood of Lim reoffending to be low.

The Attorney-General’s Chambers said yesterday that it would appeal against Lim’s sentence.

Today, Mr Shanmugam, who also commented on the case on his Face­book page, said: “For these (workers) who have come here to help us build our infrastructure, instead of being grateful to them and recognising that they’re doing a hard job ... we go and attack them ... It’s bullying somebody who’s vulnerable. It’s sickening conduct — the kind of conduct that you would not approve of if somebody did it to animals.”

In his post published today, Mr Shanmugam said he hoped people who think and act like Lim are a minority here.