Straits Times, Singapore, 20 June 2003

Youth fined $1,000 for bashing teacher

A TEENAGER, who refused to join his schoolmates in a beach clean-up, punched his teacher in the chest after an argument.

Teo Yong Ming, now aged 17, also hit another student who tried to stop him from beating Mr Koh Kar Meng on Sept 21 last year.

Yesterday, he was fined $1,000 by a magistrate's court after he pleaded guilty to hurting the 50-year-old teacher.

That morning, the teacher had gone to East Coast Parkway with 120 students from the secondary school.

However, when it was time to clean up the beach, Yong Ming refused and left. About two hours later, after the teacher and the rest of the students had finished the job, they went to a carpark nearby for refreshments.

The teen returned to the group and started behaving aggressively towards the teacher.

When Mr Koh told the boy that he would deal with him in school, Yong Ming punched the older man several times on the chest and hit another student who tried to stop him. Mr Koh called the police.

The teen, who did not have a lawyer in court yesterday, told the magistrate in mitigation that he was caned in school for the incident.

He said he had apologised to both victims and had given the student some money as compensation.