Smashed with a beer bottle on the head, and multiple kicks and punches—the face alone was kicked more than five times—before being left lying in a pool of blood. These attacks by four youths have left 39-year-old See Chien Hwa bedridden since March, with sunken cheeks and several tubes running in and out of his body.
It is no wonder that his son, five years old, took one look at him and ran off crying, too scared by his father’s appearance. See also has an eight-year-old daughter.
See is brain damaged—he cannot recognise anyone and needs to be bathed and changed by someone. All he can do is blink. The tubes are to help him eat and breathe.
See’s estranged wife, who only wants to be known as Madam Goh, told The New Paper, “When I visited, he would just stare at the wall and not respond to anything.”
Goh describes See as a loving father whom the kids adore, “a jovial, talkative man who loved playing with the kids”. She can only tell her boy that “Papa is still in hospital” and put on a brave front for her children after her children told her, “Mama, please don’t die. Otherwise, who would take care of us?”
Although separated, Goh still cares from See, but is not able to bring him home as there is no one to take care of him and she is already struggling to make ends meet.
Continue to the next page to read on about See’s attackers, and how it happened.
Last Friday, 19-year-old Mohammad Noor Helmi Mohammed Herman was the last attacker to be sentenced after Mohammad Zaidi Zahad, 18, Ahmad Sholihin Mosa, 23, and Muhammad Syazwandi Abdullah, 16. This is not the first time Helmi was convicted of a crime.
District Judge Mathew Joseph described this as one of the worst cases of grievous hurt that he had seen in court.
The attack took place in the wee hours of March 6, after See became verbally aggressive to the group of youth. He had asked Helmi for a cigarette, but the teen did not have any. He went into a convenience store to buy a drink and Helmi on his back when he came out.
See started to shout at the group and advanced towards them before his friend (name unknown) stopped him. The friend explained to the youths that See had just got his belongings stolen the previous day.
Still, Helmi was not enraged at being shouted at. After taking 10 nitrazepam tablets—a type of sleeping pill—he walked around, found a beer bottle and asked his group if they wanted to assault Mr See. They agreed and the attacked ensued.
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