A TEENAGER refused to surrender his two-year-old handphone to a robber, despite being punched.

The robber fled empty-handed, but Lee Yan Rong's worried mother would rather that he had given up his phone.

She said: 'Your life can't be bought with money.'

The bespectacled 14-year-old, a Secondary3 student, said he was frightened but would not give up his LG phone because it had sentimental value.

The $200 phone - his first - was a gift from his oldest brother, 25, who works in a bank.

On Monday, the teenager, who stands at 1.75m but weighs only 55kg, was heading home from school along a dimly lit area outside Guillemard Apartments at Geylang Lorong 26 around 7.30pm.

He was barely 30m from his own apartment, when a balding man, in his 30s, suddenly grabbed his lower right hand from behind and spun him around.

The man, described by the boy as being 'short and skinny with a large tattoo on his right hand', pushed Yan Rong against the wall.

He allegedly held the boy's right arm as he tried to grab the handphone from the teen's pants pocket.

But Yan Rong used his left hand to grip his pocket tightly.

When the man demanded his identity card, Yan Rong said he didn't have one.

'YOU OFFENDED SOMEONE'

'The man said I had offended someone and punched me hard in the stomach,' Yan Rong recounted.

Despite the pain, he tightened his grip.

'I couldn't hit back or my grip would loosen. I kept thinking of my handphone and not the pain.'

Although the man was unarmed and skinner and shorter than him, Yan Rong admitted: 'I was scared.'

The man then asked him if he smoked and again demanded his IC.

Fortunately, a cyclist came by and saw the incident.

As he went closer, the robber loosened his grip and gave Yan Rong a bizarre parting shot before fleeing: 'You never offend anyone, you never smoke cigarettes, don't stay in this area anymore.'

The cyclist, Mr Peter Ko, a marketing manager in his 50s, helped the stunned teenager to call the police and circled the area twice on his bike to look for the man.

A police spokesman confirmed that they received a call around 7.40pm and are investigating.

Mr Ko, who had been visiting his mother in Haig Road, said that he saw the man leave with another man and a woman who were standing nearby as he allegedly terrorised Yan Rong.

Mr Ko said: 'At first, I thought it was a family, but as I went closer, I saw that the boy looked frightened and the man looked rough.'

The incident still haunts Yan Rong.

On Thursday, while returning from school in the evening, he saw three people smoking below his apartment on Geylang Lorong 26, panicked, and called his mother at home.

She rushed from the apartment to check on him, but it was a false alarm.

PLACE CHANGING

Madam Siow GH, who didn't want to reveal her age and works in customer service, now worries for her youngest child.

She has four sons.

She said: 'As I'm working, I can't wait at the bus stop for him every day.

Madam Siow, her counsellor husband, 55, and their sons have lived in the area for the past 18 years.

She said she has noticed that the place is becoming seedier as the red-light district edges closer.

She hopes her son's traumatic experience will alert other parents that their children could become targets for robbers.

She said: 'Perhaps parents can educate their children on how they should react in such circumstances.'