Maid jailed for repeatedly striking heads of employer’s daughters, one with special needs

SINGAPORE — Frustrated with her employer’s daughter who has intellectual development issues, a foreign domestic worker repeatedly hit the then five-year-old’s head with a variety of household items, including a broom and a mop.

The 27-year-old maid from Myanmar, who cannot be named due to a gag order, was sentenced to 14 months in jail after pleading guilty on Tuesday (Oct 1) to six charges of ill-treating children in April last year. Eight other similar charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.

Some charges relate to occasions when she lashed out at the girl’s younger sister, who was four years old then, but her attacks were largely directed at the elder child, who was diagnosed with “global developmental delay” when she was about one year old.

Some of the assaults, captured by a surveillance camera, involved “great force”, the court heard.

The maid would often ill-treat the girl when supervising her as she did writing exercises. The maid was also doing household chores such as mopping or sweeping at the same time, the court heard.

In the first incident, on the evening of April 6, 2018, the maid vented her anger over a span of nearly two hours by slapping the girl and hitting her head, neck and shoulder with a broom handle, her handphone and a mop handle. The maid also struck the younger girl on the head.

A few days later, on April 11, the maid hit the elder girl on her head, cheeks and hands with a remote control at least nine times.

Then on April 14, the maid struck her on the head at least 34 times with a metal spoon. She also hit her head with a plastic box and her knuckles, and slapped her.

And as she was teaching the elder girl how to write on April 19, the maid lost her patience and hit the girl on the head with a pencil at least 11 times. She also pushed the girl's head onto the table forcefully.

In another instance on April 23, the maid was so angry that the elder girl was refusing to eat her dinner that she pulled her hair to make her look at her food, forcefully hit her on the head with her hand and slapped her.

It is not clear when the offences were discovered. Court documents only stated that the 36-year-old mother of the girls, who are now aged six and seven, called the police to report on her maid sometime after 3am on Dec 24 last year. At that time, she told the police: “My Myanmar maid beat my baby many times. I caught her doing that on camera.”

Court documents showed that the elder daughter went for a medical check-up at the KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital the day after the April 23 attack. She and her younger sister also had a check-up on May 3.

‘I DID IT LIGHTLY,’ MAID SAYS

The maid was not represented by a lawyer.

Speaking through a Burmese interpreter on Tuesday, she told the court: “I am very remorseful and regret my actions. I was at that time looking after two children – one of whom is not normal – on top of having to do housework. Plus, I was under stress.”’

While she maintained that these are not excuses, she added: “I did it lightly, Your Honour. (The hits were) not very forcefully (inflicted). There was no blood, no cuts, nothing like that, Your Honour.”

However, Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Lee Wei Liang objected to the maid’s assertions that her hits were “light”, pointing out that there was “great force” inflicted in some instances. He cited recordings from a surveillance camera which allowed prosecutors to review how the maid had committed her offences.

While seeking a jail sentence of at least 14 months, DPP Lee said anger should not be accepted as a mitigating factor, and that no one should be excused for making “violent breaches on a young child”.