SINGAPORE, Nov 14 — After realising that his girlfriend had apparently cheated on him again, and with several men this time, Goo Swee Heng began driving off in a car with her mobile phone.

He drove on for 200m while she ran alongside the car, holding onto the front passenger door handle. She soon fell to the ground and suffered several abrasions.

The 45-year-old man pleaded guilty yesterday to causing hurt to Geraldine Kock by a rash act.

District Judge Christopher Goh will consider another theft charge when sentencing him on November 17.

The couple began dating in 2016. However, things deteriorated in early 2017 when Goo caught Kock cheating on him, his lawyer Ashwin Ganapathy told the court.

She confessed and said that she would not do it again, so Goo continued being with her. But in 2018, she started avoiding him again, becoming cold and going silent for days on end.

This left Goo puzzled, Ashwin said.

In November that year, Goo suggested that they break up, but she asked him not to end their relationship. Goo then told her that she should change and agreed to stay with her.

But “things did not go as planned” as Kock continued to ignore him. Goo strongly suspected that she was still cheating on him, Ashwin said.

The confrontation

On December 14, 2018, Goo drove to her residential estate in Ang Mo Kio, intending to confront her about her behaviour.

Kock claimed that they were no longer together at the time.When Goo demanded that she come clean, she claimed that he had suspected her without basis. He told her that she should let him see her phone messages if she had nothing to hide, Ashwin said.

She refused and Goo believed that his suspicions were right.The lawyer said: “In a fit of rage and hurt, our client took the phone from (Kock’s) hands. Our client then went through her phone in front of (her).”

To his “horror and disappointment,” he came across numerous chat threads between her and various unknown men, in which she made arrangements to meet them for sex, Ashwin added.

He also found out that she had created various email accounts “for the purposes of cheating on him,” the lawyer said.

‘Spur of the moment'

The prosecution sought five to six weeks’ jail, while Ashwin asked for a high fine or a maximum of two weeks’ jail.

The lawyer from IRB Law said that Kock had every right to go after his client since he had her phone, but stressed that he had committed the offence “on the spur of the moment.”

He urged the court to consider the circumstances and noted that Kock’s injuries were “not that serious.”

She had refused his offer of compensation for her injuries.

In response, District Judge Goh said that he would impose a custodial sentence — around three weeks’ jail — but needed time to look at similar cases.

For causing hurt by a rash act, Goo could be jailed up to a year or fined up to S$5,000 (RM15,303), or both. — TODAY