A 47-year-old Caucasian man was caught on video mocking a 60-year-old security guard and punching him to the floor in an alleged confrontation at Roxy Square Shopping Centre carpark on late Thursday night (4 April).
Facebook page All Singapore Stuff posted the video of the dramatic altercation the following day, which was filmed by another person at the scene during the encounter. The Caucasian man has since been identified as Singapore senior advertising agency creative Stuart Mills.
The two-minute-long video went viral on Facebook. The latest update from Strait Times reported that the incident started with the security guard’s attempts to direct and escort Mr Stuart who complained that he could not find the exit of the carpark.
However, Mr Stuart refused to listen and asked to speak to the supervisor, Andrew Lim. Mr Lim tried to explain that there were several other exits but Mr Stuart mocked him instead, telling him to “shut the **k up” and later calling him an “idiot”. He was also filming himself and Mr Lim on his phone throughout the entire incident.
Mr Lim also made the other guard record a video in case anything happened when Mr Stuart’s behaviour started to get threatening and abusive.
When Mr Lim was leading Mr Stuart towards an exit, he stuck out his leg and tripped the supervisor, causing the guard to tell him “Hey, enough!”. All of a sudden, Mr Stuart punched Mr Lim so hard that he fell to the ground and his spectacles flew off.
The other guard recording the video tried to apprehend Mr Stuart who tried to hit him but missed. Mr Stuart told the guard to “f**k off” and ran away while the guard called the police. The authorities were alerted around 12.17am to the scene and have classified the case as voluntarily causing hurt.
Mr Lim’s employer, security firm Regal Security, is preparing to take legal action against Mr Stuart for leaving the victim with a swollen eye, a sprained neck and broken glasses.
Mr Lim was given two days’ medical leave and had to undergo a CT scan for an abnormality detected during an X-ray examination. Regal Security has already hired a lawyer for the case and will be covering the medical and legal costs involved.
Regal Security general manager K. Bhaskaran told Straits Times that Mr Stuart returned to the mall to surrender himself late Friday afternoon (5 April) to apologise for the incident.
Calling the man’s actions “very uncalled for”, Mr Lim said: “I’ve met drunkards and all, but they were not abusive, not aggressive… I thought he might push me, but not like this.”
According to a report by LianheZaobao, Mr Lim stated that apologies alone would not solve the problem and that he has handed the matter to his employer to settle. He is also unaware if Mr Stuart had offered any compensation.
Mr Lim told reporters that he has not encountered Mr Stuart since that day but he believes that both of them will meet eventually in the police station. He added that he is considering early retirement due to wife’s concerns about his safety following the incident.
Mr Stuart’s profile on krop.com indicated that he “is now writing films, researching a TV series idea and is also still available for freelance work and projects within the advertising industry.” Prior to that, he was working as a global creative director at TBWA Singapore since 2017 but he left the agency in in May last year.
Back in the 1990s, he first worked for Saatchi & Saatchi in London. He later moved to Australia where he worked in Sydney and Melbourne for agencies including Young & Rubicam (Y&R), Clemenger BBDO and The Campaign Palace. In 2005, he had his first stint in Singapore at Ogilvy & Mather before he later joined Phibious as group executive creative director and was in charge of creative output for Vietnam, Indonesia, and Cambodia.
Then in 2013, he returned to Singapore as a freelance executive creative director at Bates CHI. Two years later, he was persuaded by Cheil to move to Seoul, Korea to work on global projects for Samsung.
Mr Stuart has received a long line of awards triumphs at shows including Cannes, D&AD, Adfest, Spikes, the Clio Awards and the World Press Awards. He has also worked for SapientNitro and the BBC among others.
