Indian-origin Singaporean gets 9 months' jail for abusing wife

An unemployed Singaporean man of Indian origin has been jailed for nine months for attacking his wife with a knife and hitting her with a fan and a flask, a media report said today.
S I George Raj, 42, was also fined Singaporean dollars 2,000 yesterday for criminal trespass and contravening a personal protection order granted to his wife, The Straits Times reported.
Raj pleaded guilty to four of the six charges but told the court he had anxiety attack on the day he committed the crime.
The wife, Shivani Priyadarshini Dinesh Kumar Vellayappan, was granted a personal protection order in October, 2011 after Raj acted violently towards her following failure of their marriage.

Last December, he threatened and abused Shivani, 32, who was then living with her mother in a subsurb housing estate.
In one of the attacks, he swiped a knife at Shivani, causing superficial cuts on her face, neck and ear. He also hit her with a fan and a flask, the report said.

In his plea at sentencing, Raj told the court "I still love my wife and want to be with my wife".
In mitigation, defence lawyer Ram Goswami said that Raj suffered from alcohol dependence and that he had been trying to control his excessive drinking.
But Raj also had previous conventions for unlawful assembly, possession of an offensive weapon, assault and robbery, the report said.

Passing the sentence, Judge Lim Tse Haw said the case was a particularly bad instance of spousal abuse and that a substantial jail term was called for, it said.