Split judgment in maid abuse case
By Zul Othman, TODAY | Posted: 02 December 2009 0646 hrs

	Photos  of

SINGAPORE: Should the court follow sentencing norms based on the severity of an assault, or can judges consider, in a maid abuse case, the position of authority held by the employer and the vulnerability of the maid as an aggravating factor?

This poser has split the Court of Appeal in a case involving an Indonesian maid who was abused repeatedly by her employer.

The 37-year-old accused, Lawrence Lim Hwang Ngin, is a police officer who was found guilty of kicking the maid, hitting her on the head and rapping her forehead with his knuckles on five occasions between January and May 2006. The maid was 23 at the time.

Now, the appellate court - the highest court in the Singapore justice system - in a 2-1 judgment has opted to not only let his conviction stand, it has doubled his jail term to 24 months.

While the signal from Justices Andrew Phang, V K Rajah and Woo Bih Li is clear - that maid abuse cannot be tolerated - the three Court of Appeal judges were split in their individual conclusions.

Justice Woo, the dissenting judge, felt that the positions of maid and employer ought not to be viewed as an aggravating factor.

He also argued that "there is a current sentencing norm of one to six weeks imprisonment in cases where there is no serious physical injury".

But in the 114-page written judgment, Justice Rajah opined: "Surely, it cannot be said that an abusive employer who persistently mistreats and humiliates a maid and then later physically injures her should be sentenced similarly with one who ordinarily treats a maid well but then on a solitary occasion loses control of himself and then inflicts a similar injury?"

"Does that mean that anything short of a grievous or permanent injury is not a serious injury?" he wrote.

Justice Phang, who agreed with this conclusion, added that "the sentencing process is not - and ought not to be - a mechanistic one".

This case was unique, as the accused had admitted that he wanted to wage "psychological warfare" on his victim, added the judge.

Justice Kan Ting Chiu, who presided over the trial last year, had also noted a pattern of assault, which took place at regular intervals.

Lim had initially faced 13 charges for sexual and physical assault on the maid, who cannot be named, but was acquitted on all allegations of sexual offence, including rape, because of reasonable doubt.

He then appealed against the sentences for his five convictions and the verdict for three of those, while the prosecution had appealed against the length of the jail terms for all five charges.

Justice Phang noted: "When the severe physical injuries inflicted on the victim are coupled with the mental abuse which she was subjected to (all in a systematic and patterned fashion), it can be seen immediately that the sentence meted out by the Judge in the court below is, with the deepest respect, manifestly inadequate." - TODAY