Maid gets jail for hitting 7-month-old baby repeatedly, leaving bruise
The 26-year-old woman had been hired specifically to care for the infant, and was spotted hitting the child by a nanny hired to care for an older sibling.
File photo of a baby drinking milk. (Photo: iStock)
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SINGAPORE: Frustrated and finding it difficult to manage a seven-month-old baby she had been hired to care for, a maid hit the infant.
She did this on five occasions, stopping only after a nanny tasked with looking after the victim’s older sibling sent incriminating videos of the abuse to their employer.
Osayan Mevil Rosales, a 26-year-old Filipino national, was sentenced to nine months’ jail on Tuesday (Aug 26) after pleading guilty to one count of ill-treating the baby under the Children and Young Persons Act.
The court heard that she began working for the American victim’s family in July 2024, with the primary task of caring for the baby.
There were already two other helpers at the house - another maid who did household chores, and a part-time nanny who cared for the victim’s older sister.
In the first week of February this year, the offender was attempting to feed the baby milk from a bottle in her room while he was crying continuously.
Rosales found it difficult to manage the baby, said the prosecutor. At the same time, the nanny was in the room talking on her phone.
Rosales gestured to the nanny to lower her voice but felt that she was being ignored.
Angered by the circumstances, Rosales vented her frustration by hitting the victim on his thigh with her hand.
She hit the boy again on another four occasions.
On Feb 21, Rosales hit the boy’s arm because he was crying while she fed him milk, intensifying his crying.
The nanny witnessed this and recorded it on her phone.
The last incident occurred on Mar 3, 2025 with the boy crying again and refusing to drink milk.
As she found it noisy and difficult to manage the child, Rosales hit him on his thigh.
That same day, the nanny sent incriminating videos to the victim’s mother, who was overseas.
The mother forwarded the clips to her husband’s personal assistant and asked him to report the matter to the police.
The boy was taken to hospital and a 4cm by 6cm bruise was found on his thigh.
The prosecutor sought eight to 10 months’ jail for Rosales, saying the victim was “extremely vulnerable” and that the offence may never have been discovered if not for the video evidence.
Rosales tendered a written mitigation plea which was not read out in court. The judge mentioned that she had referred to “difficult working conditions”, but did not elaborate.
He told her that she has betrayed the trust of her employers by committing the acts against the very child she had been tasked to care for.
The penalties for ill-treating a child are a jail term of up to eight years and a fine of up to S$8,000. As Rosales' charge was amalgamated to include five instances of the same offence, she could have been given double the maximum jail term and fine.
