Maid jailed 8 months for ill-treating 3-year-old boy who did not want to go to sleep

SINGAPORE — A 31-year-old maid was jailed eight months on Friday (April 17) for causing unnecessary physical pain to her employer’s three-year-old child by slapping, pushing and handling him aggressively while trying to lull him to sleep.

Mesias Richel Rizada, who is from the Philippines, started working for the child’s parents in December 2018. She slept with the child on weekday nights.

Her abusive acts, between 9pm and 10pm on Aug 22 last year, were captured on surveillance cameras installed in her employer’s home.

The boy’s parents were not home and the boy’s maternal grandmother, who had come to visit them between June and September last year, was not in the room when the incident happened.

Video footage showed that after the child’s grandmother was done reading him a book and playing with him that night, she left the room. 

Rizada tossed him from the foot of the bed to the head of the bed.

When the boy rested his head on her, she forcefully pushed it away. 

Shortly after, Rizada slapped his back, pulled his leg and moved him aggressively to the head of the bed.

When the child got up again to play with his toys, she slapped his back and then used her leg to push him back onto the bed.

When the boy got up to pick up his bolster, she held his neck and pushed his face down into the bed.

Later that night, Rizada patted the boy to lull him to sleep. But not long after, she started slapping his cheek. 

At one point in the night, while she was on her mobile phone, the boy crawled over to her. 

She forcefully hit his head, grabbed him by his shoulders and jerked him forward before carrying him and dropping him onto the bed next to hers.

As the child was resting on the other bed, she slapped him on his cheek and then carried him back to her bed before hitting his mouth once and chest twice.

She later held his chin and slapped him once more.

The boy started crying at this point. 

As she knew his parents had just returned home, she slapped him again to get him to keep quiet.

Despite his parents being home, she continued ill-treating the child, including hitting him with a soft toy.

She only stopped when the child’s parents entered the room. 

The court heard that the boy’s grandmother saw the maid hitting the child through the room’s surveillance camera and informed the boy’s parents. 

The matter was reported to the police two days later. 

When confronted by her employers, Rizada initially claimed that she merely used her leg to try to stop their child from falling off the bed. 

She later admitted that she lost her patience with the child and handled him roughly as she was upset about her husband having an affair with another woman in the Philippines, said Deputy Public Prosecutor Kalal Pillay. 

For ill-treating a child, Rizada could have been jailed for up to four years or fined up to S$4,000, or both.