According to an article by Today, A 25 year old man, Mohammad Syafiq Othman, was given a jail term of six years and also punished with 12 strokes of the cane for molesting a woman while holding a penknife in his hand.
He had a weird ‘craving’ for women who are disabled and ended up stalking one of them to her home in Buona Vista after she rejected his advances and blocked him.
How he met her
Sometime in August 2022, Syafiq saw the woman while she was at work at a retail booth.
She walked with a limp and as he had a weird ‘craving’ for women who are disabled, he stalked her at her workplace for three to four times a week and also on an occasion stalked her from her workplace all the way to Redhill MRT station.
Approached her to ask for her contact
Nearing the end of August, Syafiq decided to approach the woman to ask her for her contact number.
However, she declined his request and instead opted to give him her Instagram handle as he had requested for it as an alternative.
The woman however did not accept his follower request as she was not interested in him and also blocked him subsequently.
This made Syafiq upset and on Sept 10, he approached her to ask her the reason why she did not follow his account before walking off.
CCTV footage showed him stalking her from afar
Footage from the CCTV on 21 Sept showed Syafiq walking by the shop where the woman was working at around 9:15pm and even though he did not enter the shop, he continued to stalk her from afar without her knowledge.
When she ended work, he followed her without her knowledge back to the block where she lived.
Attacked her
Syafiq then followed her to the lift and took out a penknife when the lift doors were closed.
He then proceeded to restrain her by choking her neck from her back.
The lift eventually reached the floor the woman had intended to alight but Syafiq managed to keep the lift doors closed while still restraining onto the victim.
He did this because he wanted to instill fear into the woman and also get some money out off her.
He then pointed the penknife at her neck and told her that he had been ‘head over heels’ over her for the longest time, while asking her to ‘shut up’ as she tried to call for help.
He then asked her to hand her pouch over to him with the contents valued at about $400.
While she was removing her pouch to pass it to him, Syafiq proceeded to push her body towards the back of the lift and then began molesting her, touching all over her body.
When she fell to the floor, Syafiq also kicked her in the leg.
Woman tried to escape
As the woman tried to escape when the lift reach the first level, Syafiq pulled her back into the lift by grabbing her by her neck before he made his escape and while he was escaping, he left her pouch behind.
The total ordeal for the woman lasted around two minutes.
A repeat offender
Syafiq had previous brushes with the law.
In 2020, he was convicted for a few offences including stalking another person which got him a prison term of four months.
Possible penalties
For his offence of aggravated outrage of modesty, Syafiq could have gotten three to ten years of imprisonment term and also be caned.
For his offence of attempted robbery, Syafiq could have gotten two to seven years of jail and also be caned.
Image source: Google Maps