Canteen bump leads to stabbing.
By Elena Chong.
481 words
25 January 2002
Straits Times
English
(c) 2002 Singapore Press Holdings Limited

Angry teenager calls in 'outside fighters' after ordinary school incident; one boy lands in hospital, four culprits face judge.

IT WAS a fairly innocuous incident: Two schoolboys banging into each other during recess in school.

But it ended up in a fight with one schoolboy being stabbed and another boy facing the prospect of being packed off to the Reformative Training Centre (RTC) for young offenders.

Mohamed Sofian Mohamed Mokhtar, 15, suffered a 2.5-cm-long cut in his liver and spent four days at Tan Tock Seng Hospital.

Wong Han Wah will be sentenced next month, pending probation and reformative-training reports.

Three other people were given jail sentences ranging from six months to four years.

The sorry episode started when Mohamed Sofian bumped into a schoolmate in the canteen at Yishun Town Secondary School on Sept 28 last year.

The boy told another student, Han Wah, then 15, about it. Han Wah confronted Mohamed Sofian and told him to meet him after school that day.

He also called a friend, Rodney Yeow Kim Hwee, 19, to meet him. Two other friends, Foo Chee Meng, 25, an odd-job renovation contractor, and Khong Kok Chee, 24, also learnt about the meeting.

When school ended at about 12.45 pm, Han Wah, Mohamed Sofian and a few others left the school and met Yeow. They followed him to the void deck of Block 204 in Yishun Street 21, where Foo turned up.

The man pulled Mohamed Sofian's collar and asked him about the incident. Yeow and Khong joined in to kick and punch the boy.

Foo then stabbed the boy with a knife. All four fled, leaving the boy on the floor, bleeding from the abdomen.

Foo, who has a previous conviction, was given four years' jail and six strokes of the cane after pleading guilty. Yeow and Khong were given six months jail each.

Turning to Han Wah, District Judge F.G. Remedios said that while the boy did not intend for Mohamad Sofian to get hurt, it was his call for outside help that led to the stabbing.

In view of Han Wah's age 'more than anything else', he would call for a probation and RTC report before sentencing on Feb 21.

The school principal, Mr Tan Teck Hock, described the incident as an isolated case and said the school is willing to take Han Wah back.

'We should not have this idea that anybody with a blemished past should be banned from school. I wish Han Wah will learn from this incident and move on in life.'

He said Han Wah, whose father is a renovation contractor and mother, a clerk, is in the Normal (Academic) stream. Mr Tan also said Mohamad Sofian has recovered from his injuries and will be taking his N-levels this year.