A cleaner scolded his girlfriend for not cooking one evening last year and she responded by stabbing him in the chest. Wan Yoke Sim, 49, pleaded guilty on Monday to grievously hurting Mr Tay Mui Tong. She was jailed for two years.

A district court heard the couple was then sharing a one-room Housing Board flat in Ang Mo Kio. He returned at 4pm on Aug 13 last year and a quarrel erupted between them when he found no food in the kitchen.

He left the flat and returned at 8.30pm with a bottle of rice wine. While he was drinking it, they quarrelled some more. In the midst of swearing at each other and cursing at each other's parents and family, Wan, who is jobless, took a fruit knife from the kitchen and stabbed him in the chest.

When she saw him bleeding profusely, she panicked and called the police. When they arrived, she claimed that Mr Tay had been attacked by several strangers. As Mr Tay was stretched off to the ambulance, she broke down and confessed to stabbing him.

Mr Tay's right lung had collapsed from the injury and he required emergency surgery at Tan Tock Seng Hospital to stop the bleeding. He was warded for nine days.

Pleading for a lenient sentence, lawyer Gloria Lee, who was assigned to the case by the Criminal Legal Aid Scheme of the Law Society, said that her client had a long history of treatment at the Institute of Mental Heath.