NAKHON RATCHASIMA - A local dentist society has again asked police to arrest a German man they accuse of repeatedly assaulting their members in their clinics and damaging their equipment.
Spokesman Wiwat Chatwongwan accompanied other dentists who say they have been attacked to file a complaint at Muang Nakhon Ratchasima police station on Monday.
Mr Wiwat said the society wanted police to take legal action against the man, a 41-year-old German national.
They allege the man has attacked several dentists in clinics in Muang district since November last year.
One dentist had filed a police complaint in November, but there was no progress in the police investigation. In the meantime, the man had attacked several other dentists in their clinics, Mr Wiwat said.
“People in dental clinics in Muang district are frightened. The society has warned dental clinics throughout Nakhon Ratchasima to watch out for this dangerous man,” he said.
Security cameras had recorded the accused man's initial visit to a dental clinic on the Mitraparp Highway in tambon Jor Hor of Muang district on the evening of Nov 30 last year.
After seeing the dentist and returning to the ground floor the man appeared agitated, rushed up to the second floor, punched a hole in the door of a surgery occupied by a woman dentist and opened it. He went inside and grabbed the dentist’s head, bit her lips and knocked her head against a wall before leaving.
The woman was terrified, still too afraid to resume work at the clinic, Mr Wiwat said.
The most recent attack was at another dental clinic, this one in a shopping mall in Muang district, at 5.34pm last Friday.
The same man broke into a woman dentist’s surgery and began shouting at her. The frightened dentist fled from the room.
The same foreigner had vented his apparent anger at other dental clinics, damaged equipment and made threats to dentists' lives, both in person and on social media, Mr Wiwat said.
The representative of the Nakhon Ratchasima Dental Society said that the man lived with his Thai wife in tambon Don Chompu of Non Sung district.
Mr Wiwat quoted the man’s wife as saying her husband had mental issues and had lost his job in Germany before coming to Thailand and eventually moving in with her. He was not receiving treatment, she said, but did use cannabis.
Mr Wiwat asked police to take action against the man and ensure he made no more attacks on dentists.
“He should be getting proper treatment, or be confined, so that he cannot disturb society any more. Right now, dentists are being threatened, both physically and mentally, and they do not feel safe,” Mr Wiwat said.