{"id":17713,"date":"2025-12-08T03:13:43","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T19:13:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=17713"},"modified":"2025-12-08T03:13:43","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T19:13:43","slug":"more-than-7-weeks-jail-for-caregiver-who-assaulted-bedridden-and-non-verbal-patient-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=17713","title":{"rendered":"More than 7 weeks&#8217; jail for caregiver who assaulted bedridden and non-verbal patient"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\"><span><b>Claudia Tan<\/b><\/span><span><br \/><\/span><span><b>The Straits Times<\/b><\/span><span><br \/><\/span><span><b>Dec 5, 2025<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">Frustrated by his employer&#8217;s demands, a freelance caregiver took it out on his patient by punching him and hitting him in the face.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\"><span><a class=\"text-primary-500 hover:underline\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/courts-crime\/more-than-7-weeks-jail-for-caregiver-who-assaulted-bedridden-and-non-verbal-patient\" target=\"_blank\">Joel Goh Ming Xuan, 22, was sentenced to 54 days&#8217; jail<\/a><\/span> on Dec 5 after pleading guilty to one charge of voluntarily causing hurt to a vulnerable person.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">Court documents showed he was employed by the victim&#8217;s mother in March 2024 to care for her son, who was bedridden and non-verbal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">This included duties such as cleaning the victim, changing his diapers and helping him move around the house.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">In May that year, Goh started arranging fewer sessions with the victim, as he was upset that his employer, the victim&#8217;s mother, often made him run additional errands and would send several messages to check on his whereabouts while he was carrying them out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">On July 2, 2024, Goh was upset again with his employer and decided to take it out on her son.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">At about 8.25am, he told the woman, who was resting in the master bedroom, that he could manage taking care of her son on his own, and then closed the bedroom door.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">&#8220;This roused the (woman&#8217;s) suspicion and she remotely turned on the closed-circuit television (camera) in the living room, which was linked to her mobile phone,&#8221; Deputy Public Prosecutor Jordy Kay told the court.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">Video footage played in court showed Goh shifting the victim on the bed in the living room while changing his diaper at about 8.45am.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">He tried to separate the victim&#8217;s legs and punched the victim&#8217;s thighs when he felt the latter resist.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">He also hit the victim&#8217;s face once with his palm and shook his head vigorously when he wiped the victim&#8217;s face.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">Goh&#8217;s actions caused pain to the victim, which led him to bite his inner lower lip.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">Alarmed by what she saw, the victim&#8217;s mother rushed into the room to check on her son.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">She asked Goh what happened, but he did not respond.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">The woman did not confront him then, as she wanted to rewatch the video footage before deciding what to do.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">She and Goh later carried the victim to the master bedroom. Goh prepared food for the victim before leaving the flat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">The woman lodged a police report against Goh on July 5, 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">He was arrested on Sept 30 that year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">Court records showed that Goh had made voluntary restitution of $3,000 to the victim&#8217;s family, and wrote them an apology letter on Sept 28, 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">The prosecution sought a sentence of eight to 12 weeks&#8217; imprisonment for Goh, noting that there was a serious abuse of trust, as he was hired to care for the victim.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">DPP Kay added that his offence was detected only because of the vigilance of the victim&#8217;s mother.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">Goh&#8217;s lawyer, Mr Roy Paul Mukkam from A.W. Law, argued for a lighter sentence, saying it was an &#8220;unfortunate incident&#8221;, and that Goh had made restitution to the victim.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">In sentencing Goh, the judge said there was some form of premeditation in his acts, as he made sure he was alone in the room with the victim before committing the acts of violence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">Goh will begin his sentence on Dec 29.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-secondary pt-md text-18 font-normal leading-1.5 text-grayscale-800\">For voluntarily causing hurt, an offender can be jailed for up to three years, fined up to $5,000, or both.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"border-t border-primary-200 mt-xl mb-md\"\/>\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-col gap-md py-md xl:flex-row xl:items-center\"><span class=\"font-primary text-18 font-semibold leading-1.2 text-black\">Get more of Stomp&#8217;s latest updates by following us on:<\/span><\/div>\n<hr class=\"border-t border-primary-200 mt-xl mb-md\"\/>\n<p>Join the conversation<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.stomp.sg\/trending-now\/more-7-weeks-jail-caregiver-who-assaulted-bedridden-and-non-verbal-patient\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Claudia TanThe Straits TimesDec 5, 2025 Frustrated by his employer&#8217;s demands, a freelance caregiver took it out on his patient by punching him and hitting&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}