By Teh Jen Lee

THE 14 friends were out to enjoy a night out.

But their fun turned sour when five of them were injured in a brawl at Asian fusion bar Lunar at Clarke Quay around 2am last Saturday.

The fight was apparently sparked by a shouting match between one of the friends and a bouncer. The friends alleged that the bouncers then attacked them.

The police were called and an ambulance took four injured men to hospital.

The most seriously injured, a technician who gave his name as Tony, had multiple stitches on his gums, upper lip and forehead.

The fifth person injured, a housewife called Jena, 26, wrote to The New Paper with her account of what happened.

She said the group, comprising seven men and seven women, went to Lunar at 11pm last Friday.

At about 2am, she went to the toilet. When she returned, most of the men in her group, including her husband, were missing.

'A waitress told me there was a fight near where we were sitting. Then I was told by a girlfriend that my husband was around there, so I hurried to get him out. Just as I was about to pull him away, I got pushed to the ground,' she claimed.

She knocked her head and dislodged her contact lenses. Her high heels also came off.

She claimed a few of her friends were also pushed and that was when the bouncers allegedly hit them.

Jena said: 'I stood up and pleaded for them to stop. My husband's clothes were torn and he had cuts and bruises all over his face and body. I saw blood flowing down my friends' faces.'

In the chaos, she lost her husband and wandered around barefoot until he answered her calls.

The police confirmed having received a call on 9Aug at 3am about a fight at a Clarke Quay nightspot. Investigations are ongoing.

Jena's husband, Shawn, 32, a Navy specialist, said the scuffle started after some shouting between one of his friends and a bouncer.

'I didn't want a fight to break out so I went to pull my friend away but then we got hammered,' he alleged.

He sustained a deep cut on his head and suffered bruises around his kidneys, where he was allegedly kicked.

Since the incident, he has had difficulty bending down to carry his 18-month-old son, he said.

Tony, 37, spent almost four hours at Singapore General Hospital, where he was X-rayed and stitched up. He was given four days' medical leave for his injuries.

He now has to eat porridge slowly until his gums and lips heal.

The incident is still hazy in his mind.

'I heard a commotion and suddenly there was a fight. It was dark and things happened too quickly,' he said.

Jena said some friends met the next day to try to piece together what happened.

'I was told the customers at the next table had started the fight. I didn't know them. I heard they were acquaintances of someone in our group,' she said.

NOT DRUNK

Jena said her friends spent more than $1,500 on drinks but claimed they were not drunk.

'We go out a few times a year as a group. Some of the guys have had minor arguments before but never something so serious,' she said.

When contacted, Mr Bernard Lim, executive vice-president of LifeBrandz, which runs Ministry of Sound and Lunar, said: 'We have seen the CCTV footage. It all goes to the police. We know exactly what happened but we have no comments for now.'

OTHER NIGHTSPOT FIGHTS

JANUARY 2008

Four bouncers from IndoChine's The Forbidden City bar and restaurant allegedly beat up an expatriate man for two minutes while he was lying on the floor where he fell.

NOVEMBER 2007

A group of 10 clubbers got into a dispute with the bouncers at Lunar. The police were called and an ambulance took a clubber to hospital for treatment.

The clubbers claimed they were manhandled for no reason by the bouncers, but Lunar's management claimed its video footage showed the clubbers were the aggressors.

OCTOBER 2007

An American and his Singaporean wife claimed he was beaten up by the bouncers and other clubbers at Zouk.

Zouk's management said the man had attacked its security personnel first when he was asked to step outside over a molest complaint.

This article was first published in The New Paper on August 12, 2008.