The narrative below was sent to us by Jackson Lee:
I saw this circulating on Facebook earlier and it amused me:
I was onsite when Vincent Wijeysingha heckled the journalist entourage at a press conference. Actually what Vincent did was very uncalled for.
The general media questions were these:
1. Are 24 accused persons all construction workers?
2. Which firm?
3. Was deceased from same firm?
4. Are they all from same village?
5. Why are accused persons wearing red – not usual white tees?
6. How come only s147 charge? Police at briefing said rioting with dangerous weapons?
7. Who is the accused with the bandaged head?
So suddenly Vincent hops out and asked a Law Soc representative if they are preventing an activist lawyer such as M Ravi from representing any of the accused persons.
The simple fact is: there is nothing to prevent Ravi from representing any of the accused.
His antics shocked everyone, including the media. Without an invitation, Vincent crept behind media huddle and pulled his stunt.
After the media huddle broke, Amarick Gill told Vincent off and rebuked him for his questions as they weren’t fair because he (Amarick) was there not as a Law Society representative but as a criminal lawyer.
Amarick asked Vincent for his name, only to get the reply “Why do u need it?!”
This is not the first time Vincent Wijeysingha pulled antics such as this. He is known to have shouted at people in public, creating a scene and generally making a nuisance of himself.
Society should have progressed to civil discussion and people like Vincent set civil discourse back by a decade.
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I can identify, empathise and sympathise 100% with any parties who have been attacked publicly by Vincent Wijeysingha. He did it to me by approaching me in a crowded lunchtime cafe’ at SIM Clementi in September 2012, shortly after I appeared on ‘Conversation with PM Lee’, which had just been telecast. Four of my colleagues and friends sitting with me were absolutely stupefied as they witnessed this verbal frontal assault for no reason whatsoever that we could discern. I had never discussed him, made remarks about him or belittled him either off or online, so the incident came as a most unpleasant shock to all of us. I will reveal details of what he accused me of to anyone who is interested. Never in my life have I been so humiliated publicly as I was on that occasion but fortunately, my colleagues drew their own conclusions about this most uncalled-for behaviour. At a later date he approached me and offered his hand to me, suggesting that it was ‘time to move on’. I hesitated initially but then shook it, in what I hoped might represent some form of ‘closure’.