SINGAPORE – A man who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, but later defaulted on his appointments at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) and stopped taking his medication, broke his elderly mother’s nose when he assaulted her in August.

Mohamed Khalid Mohamed Yacob, 58, pleaded guilty to voluntarily causing grievous hurt to the 78-year-old woman and was sentenced to seven months’ jail on Dec 12.

Following an assessment, an IMH psychiatrist found that Khalid’s schizophrenia had relapsed at the time of the attack.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Kelly Ng said that according to the doctor, there was a contributory link between Khalid’s offence and his mental condition.

She also said he had experienced auditory hallucinations and persecutory delusions, which contributed to his actions.

Khalid has a history with the IMH dating back to 1979. He had attended his outpatient appointments there regularly up until 2016.

But he started defaulting on his IMH appointments after June that year and stopped taking his medication in 2017. Court documents did not disclose why he decided to do so.

On Aug 23, Khalid’s mother went to bed in their Woodlands flat around 10pm, while he rested on the sofa.

The DPP told the court: “About 10 minutes later, the accused thought to ‘hammer’ the victim. He walked over to her bed, awakened her and pulled her to sit upright.

“The accused then used his fist to punch the victim in the face multiple times... The victim cried in pain, but the accused continued to punch her.”

The elderly woman ran out of the flat to seek help when Khalid stopped attacking her. A neighbour alerted the police at around 10.20pm, and officers arrested him soon after.

Khalid’s mother went to Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, where she was diagnosed with injuries including a nasal bone fracture.