Fine for taxi driver who drove while drunk, smashed beer jug on stranger's head in KTV lounge fight
Nuria Ling/TODAYSINGAPORE — A taxi driver with a history of traffic offences was handed a S$7,700 fine for smashing a beer mug over a stranger's head during a fight at a KTV lounge and for driving while drunk on a separate occasion.
Lim Cheng Guan, a 46-year-old Singaporean, was given the fine on Wednesday (Feb 21) after pleading guilty to one charge of voluntarily causing hurt and one charge of drunk driving.
The taxi driver will also be disqualified from driving all classes of vehicles for three years.
FIGHT AT KTV LOUNGE
The 41-year old male victim was celebrating his birthday on June 9, 2023 with a few other friends at a KTV lounge at Lee Kai House Building.At around 3am, some of the man’s friends left the premises, leaving only three other friends who became witnesses to an altercation between the victim and four other males, including Lim.
The trouble started when the victim argued with a KTV hostess just before the lounge closed over fees that the group had allegedly not paid.
A bouncer at the KTV lounge Andrew Sim Kheng Joo, 46, intervened and continued to argue with the victim, before the dispute escalated into a physical altercation.
During the fight, Lim smashed a beer mug on the victim’s head, which caused two lacerations of around 3cm and 5cm near his eyebrows.
The victim incurred S$143 in medical costs as a result. Court documents did not reveal why Lim became involved in the fight.
Sim and two other males, a 31-year-old Wan Jie Xiang David and Lim Jia Ling Javier, 45, also allegedly kicked the victim’s lower body, hit him with a metal pole and used a broken beer bottle to hit the victim’s head.
The cases of Sim and Wan are pending before the courts while Javier Lim was fined S$500 over the same incident.
DRUNK DRIVING
About six months earlier, on Jan 10, 2023, while celebrating his friend’s birthday at a pub at Maude Road, Lim drank about four bottles of Heineken beer.He kept drinking until around 11.40pm, and stayed at the pub until after midnight before driving his taxi to the Braddell ComfortDelgro Depot to pump petrol.
On the way there, a driver sounded his horn after Lim strayed into his lane on the Central Expressway.
Lim waved his hand to apologise but the driver followed Lim to the ComfortDelgro Depot where he called police as he was concerned that the taxi driver was drunk.
The dispatched police officer spoke with Lim and noticed he smelt strongly of alcohol, before administering a breathalyser test on him, which he failed.
Lim was thus arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and escorted to Changi General Hospital for a blood test.
A report by an analyst at the Health Science Authority’s analytical toxicology laboratory revealed that Lim’s blood contained 162 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood, over double the prescribed limit of 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres.
Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Cheng You Duen told the court that Lim had committed other traffic-related offences such as careless driving, failing to obey a red light and speeding.
In view of this, DPP Cheng asked for an uplift in the punishment imposed and sought a total fine of between S$7,500 to S$8,200 for Lim’s two offences.
He noted that the taxi driver had voluntarily made restitution to the victim for the fight at the KTV lounge.
For the charge of voluntarily causing hurt, Lim could have been jailed for up to three years or be fined up to S$5,000, or receive both punishments.
Those who drive while under the influence of alcohol can be jailed for up to 12 months or be fined a minimum of S$2,000 and up to S$10,000 for a first conviction.
