44 year-old Lee Yew Nam, the boss of Encore eServices who caused a public outroar after he was captured on video slapping his company's intern, 31 year-old Mr Calvin Chan Meng Hock, was slapped with 4 charges of voluntarily causing hurt yesterday.
According to prosecutors, other than his wife, Lee did not have any permanent employees, and instead hired interns from universities and polytechnics.
Mr Chan started his internship at Encore eServices in May 2010. He was paid $500 a month. After his internship ended after 6 months, he continued in the job for the same wage. His duties included fixing customers' problems and configuring software.
In one particular incident in January 2013, Lee felt Mr Chan had not arranged the software files in the computer tidily, became angry and slapped him.
The next month, Lee scolded Mr Chan of failing to answer a customer's request in the right way. He then punched Mr Chan in the face several times and pushed him off a chair.
On 14th May that same year, Mr Chan and another 25 year-old Mr Amos Yeo were in the office when Lee scolded the former for not deleting some files in the database as he had been told.
When Mr Chan said he had forgotten, Lee grabbed his chin and pulled it back with force, saying: "Look carefully again, go through the folders and delete all the files that need to be deleted. Remember not to do this again."
The next day on 15th May, Lee went through the victim's conversation logs with a customer and took issue with Mr Chan, claiming that he failed to perform his work satisfactorily.
After confronting Mr Chan, Lee became increasingly agitated and shouted at him before punching him in the head.
Mr Yeo immediately stood up and told Lee to calm down, but Lee continued to scold Mr Chan before slapping him in the face three times.
Mr Yeo captured the incident on video on his mobile phone.
Lee, represented by Mr Sunil Sudheesan and Ms Diana Ngiam, will return to court on 14th September.
Lee will faces a maximum jail term of up to two years, a fine or both.
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