At the start of the three day hearing to assess damages, blogger Roy Ngerng took the initiative to apologise to Lee Hsien Loong. He said: "I am sorry. I had no intent to defame you". But the apology was rebuffed by PM Lee who said that the apology was "not sincere" and "the record contradicts that".
When Ngerng had the opportunity to cross-examine PM Lee on whether the facts cited in the offending blogpost were true, Lee replied that "the quotes are factual but the article on your blog is not."
He added further that "we're not here to play games. There's no point going through it again other than to aggravate damages".
The Courts also heard that on 30 May 2015, Ngerng had offered to settle the damages for a sum of S$10,000 but his was rejected by PM Lee as "derisory", due to a series of posts published recently claiming he was being persecuted by PM Lee and the Singapore judiciary.
Ngerng shared that this amount was the best he could offer given his financial situation but PM Lee insisted that for Ngerng to cast doubt on the judicial system meant the blogger was "not serious" about his apology.
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