SINGAPORE — Frustrated that a bank refused to release more than S$60,000 to her, a woman decided to take matters into her own hands by trespassing into the bank’s office, harassing one of its employees and attacking him twice.

On Friday (Dec 27), the court sentenced Yang Manying, 42, to three weeks’ jail.

Yang, who was born in China but became a Singapore citizen, pleaded guilty earlier this month to a charge of criminal trespass into an office of United Overseas Bank (UOB) and another charge of voluntarily causing hurt to the bank’s fraud investigator, Mr Desmond Goh.

Four other charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.

TRANSACTIONS AT ‘UNUSUALLY LATE HOURS’

Court documents showed that Mr Goh came to know about Yang when he was investigating suspicious transactions totalling S$67,000 into a merchant account held by UOB.

The account, opened in 2007, belonged to a clinic. While the documents did not mention who owns the clinic, a search on the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority’s website lists Yang as the owner of a healthcare centre.

Yang’s defence lawyer, Mr Desmond Tan, told the court on Friday that she had taken over her husband’s “inactive company”, which had previously entered into a merchant agreement with UOB.

During the course of his investigation, Mr Goh found that the merchant account was being used to receive sales proceeds from a massage establishment, court documents stated.

Suspicions were raised at UOB because the transactions were made at “unusually late hours” and the bank suspected that they could be “proceeds of crime”.

UOB then withheld the S$67,000 from Yang, which not only angered her, but prompted her to confront Mr Goh about it at his office in Toa Payoh.

On the morning of Sept 26 last year, Yang tailgated a UOB employee to gain access into a restricted area of the bank’s office.

After locating Mr Goh, she started attacking him and creating a commotion.

Yang was eventually escorted out of the office by the police, but she continued loitering around the area and found another opportunity to re-enter the office, and she attacked Mr Goh again.

Yang punched him in the face and chest and kicked him in the groin. She also tore his shirt and threatened him by saying that she knew where he lived, and she would look for him.

As a result of the attack, Mr Goh got a scratch mark that measured 5cm across his chest and his thighs were also bruised. 

He was given two days of medical leave and spent at least S$125.10 on medical fees because of the attack. His damaged shirt was worth S$40.

JUDGE: NO NEED TO RESORT TO VIOLENCE

Yang’s lawyer, Mr Tan, said in mitigation that she was not a highly educated individual but she managed to turn around her husband’s company and it was doing “fairly well” since she took over.

He added that years had gone by without incident until October 2017 when UOB “suddenly and unilaterally” terminated the merchant agreement that Yang was relying on to receive cashless payments.

In response, District Judge Hamidah Ibrahim said that whatever grief Yang had against UOB and Mr Goh, there was no need for her to resort to violence.

“Poor Desmond (the UOB officer), he was probably doing his job, right?” the judge asked. “If the accused is treated leniently, what kind of message are we sending? If you are not happy with the bank, you can go and beat up someone?”

For committing criminal trespass, Yang could have been jailed up to three months, or fined up to S$1,500, or both.

For voluntarily causing hurt, she could have been jailed up to two years, or fined up to S$5,000, or both.