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SINGAPORE \u2013 After consuming alcohol in June 2024, a man took a private-hire car to his Clementi home and used criminal force on the driver, who was later found lying on the road.<\/p>\n
On Sept 7, British national Oruche Morgan Fidelis, 23, was sentenced to a five-day short detention order (SDO) and 100 hours of community service.<\/p>\n
Offenders with SDO will not have a criminal record after their release.<\/p>\n
After serving his SDO, Oruche will have to perform community service within a year under the supervision of an authorised officer.<\/p>\n
He had earlier claimed trial to one count of voluntarily causing hurt to 66-year-old driver Low Ek Yong, who was found with a fractured skull and a brain injury.<\/p>\n
Low died of other causes \u2013 heart disease and large bowel obstruction \u2013 a year later.<\/p>\n
Following the trial, Oruche pleaded guilty to an amended charge of using criminal force on the victim.<\/p>\n
Court documents stated that he had stepped out of Low\u2019s vehicle with his left arm raised towards the older man.<\/p>\n
The gesture amounted to assault under the law, as it had caused Low to apprehend that Oruche was about to use criminal force on him.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In amending the charge, District Judge John Ng noted that although Low had suffered head injuries, it could not be ascertained how he sustained them \u2013 whether he was assaulted or had tripped and fallen.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Deputy Public Prosecutor Benjamin Low stated in his submissions that at around 5pm on June 12, 2024, the offender accompanied his boss to meet two clients for drinks at a Circular Road pub near Boat Quay.<\/p>\n
Oruche consumed about three pints of beer before heading to a Marina Bay bar, where he drank more alcoholic drinks.<\/p>\n
He left at around 10.30pm, booked a ride with transport provider Grab and entered the victim\u2019s car.<\/p>\n
Oruche sat in the rear, put on his AirPods and fell asleep.<\/p>\n
He was still sleeping when the car pulled up outside his home at around 11pm.<\/p>\n
The prosecution\u2019s case was that the victim tried to wake Oruche, but he remained unresponsive<\/p>\n
\u201cThe victim then got out of the vehicle and… tried to rouse the accused from his slumber by shaking the accused,\u201d said the DPP.<\/p>\n
According to the prosecutor, Oruche became angry, lunged at the victim and pushed him.<\/p>\n
The man ended up in a minimally conscious state and could neither move on command nor respond to external stimuli.<\/p>\n
Oruche was represented by lawyers Shashi Nathan, Harjeet Kaur and Tan Jia Yi from Withers KhattarWong.<\/p>\n
During the trial, Oruche testified that he \u201cstumbled\u201d out of the car and did not recognise the person shaking him.<\/p>\n
He also told the court that the driver punched him on the left side of his face, and he hit back in self-defence.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was scared that he was going to hit me again,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Oruche\u2019s mother heard the commotion and alerted his father.<\/p>\n
His parents ran out of their home and saw the driver lying face up on the road.<\/p>\n
Oruche\u2019s father tried to communicate with the man, but he was unresponsive. The father then called for an ambulance.<\/p>\n
Oruche told the police on June 13, 2024: \u201cI pushed (the victim) off me. I remember that.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was arrested at around 4am that day.<\/p>\n
The driver was discharged on Aug 7, 2024, and died of other causes in June 2025.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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SINGAPORE \u2013 After consuming alcohol in June 2024, a man took a private-hire car to his Clementi home and used criminal force on the driver,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":83013,"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-83012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83012","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=83012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/83013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}