A recalcitrant offender broke his former mother-in-law's nose after she refused to disclose the whereabouts of her daughter and granddaughter.
The 32-year-old man, who ran an event management company, was sentenced to three years' jail and six strokes of the cane yesterday. He was given an additional 55 days' jail for breaching a remission order.
The man had pleaded guilty on Monday to 10 charges for offences including causing grievous hurt as well as assaulting a taxi driver and a police officer.
The court heard that the man, who cannot be named due to a gag order to protect his daughter's identity, was sentenced to nine months' jail in 2015 for offences including assaulting a public servant, but was given an earlier release in August that year.
As part of his remission order, he was not supposed to commit any more offences between Aug 26 and Nov 24, 2015, but he breached the condition when he assaulted his former mother-in-law on Oct 1 that year.
He confronted her in a MacPherson flat at around 9pm that day, asking her for the whereabouts of his daughter and former wife.
When the 56-year-old refused to tell him, they got into a scuffle. He punched her in the face twice, causing a nasal bone fracture.
Separately, in 2017, the man assaulted a taxi driver who had gone after him for not paying the fare.
At around 1am on June 17 that year, the man boarded a taxi in an intoxicated state in Little India and later alighted without paying the $22 fare when he reached Saraca Terrace near Yio Chu Kang Road.
When cabby Chung Yuk Kee, 50, tried to stop him, he placed the older man in a headlock and slammed his face against a roadside metal railing three times.
Mr Chung, who managed to break free and call the police, was taken to Khoo Teck Puat Hospital where he had a wound over his right eyebrow stitched up.
In another incident about four months later, the man got into a quarrel with his fiancee at the void deck of a Serangoon North block of flats at around 6.40am and the police were alerted, said Deputy Public Prosecutor Lim Wei Yang.
Officers arrested the man after he refused to calm down.
For causing grievous hurt to his former mother-in-law, the man could have been jailed for up to 10 years and fined or caned.
And for assaulting the police officer, he could have been jailed for up to seven years and fined or caned.