Matriarch, 73, sentenced to jail after leading family in near-fatal abuse of 'slave'

SINGAPORE: The matriarch of a family that abused an intellectually disabled woman was sentenced to 17 years and 10 months' jail on Tuesday (Jul 2).

Hasmah Sulong, 73, is the last of several family members to be sentenced in a case that dragged on for years and almost went to trial. When her jail term was read out, a woman in the public gallery began sobbing.

The victim, who was 27 at the time of the abuse, initially sought refuge with Hasmah's family after running away from home. But after angering one of Hasmah's daughters, the victim's life was completely upturned and she came to be considered the family's slave.

The family disallowed her from returning to work at McDonald's, even though her father begged her to return home.

After observing that she was intellectually slow, the family agreed to make the victim their "babu", a Javanese term referring to female slaves.

Over one-and-a-half years from mid-2016, the victim was tortured by Hasmah and her two daughters, Hasniza and Haslinda Ismail.

Haslinda alleged that the victim had made a sexual advance towards her husband.

The women fractured one of the victim's toes, knocked out her teeth and splashed hot water on her.

Despite the victim suffering burn injuries, blisters and incontinence, the family did not get medical help for her, instead applying Dettol and cream on her wounds.

Hasmah was personally involved in the abuse in the following ways: 

• She chained the victim nightly with a metal chain to prevent her escape.
• She hit the woman on the head with a baseball bat thrice, drawing blood and deforming her ear.
• She instigated her daughter Haslinda to knock out the victim's teeth with a hammer.
• She used a pair of pliers to twist the woman's toes while Haslinda used another pair to join in.
• She dropped a fabric softener bottle filled with water on the woman's pus-filled, fractured toe.
• She slapped the victim so hard the woman bled from her mouth.
• She dug her finger into the woman's right eye, causing bleeding and permanent vision loss.
• She poured hot water on the woman's lower abdomen area, causing burn injuries that endangered her life.

When Haslinda accused the victim of stealing, Hasmah chained her up. She also instructed one of her sons to affix a metal plate with a hook to a wall to secure her position.

The victim was in that position between eight and 12 hours daily and had to sweep and mop the house before she was allowed to eat breakfast.

She was also taken to Malaysia to clean a house there, where Haslinda splashed hot oil on her.

The victim was later moved and chained to the toilet bowl because she lost control of her bowels.

She began oozing dark liquid from her mouth and nose in January 2018 and a stench emanated from her body, with pus coming from her wounds.

She could not escape as she was chained up nightly and threatened by the family with having her reputation smeared as a thief if she fled.

In the final weeks of her torture, the victim was chained to the toilet bowl where she was left to sit and sleep in her own filth and injuries, with Hasmah throwing rice on the soiled floor for her to eat.

THE SCALDING THAT ALMOST KILLED HER

In January 2018, Hasmah saw that the victim had soiled herself while chained to the toilet bowl and grew angry.

She boiled water and splashed it over the woman's naked lower body, knocking the woman unconscious such that she fell onto the bathroom floor.

After this, Hasmah noticed that the victim began behaving very strangely - banging her head on the wall, talking to herself and trying to insert her hand into her mouth.

She told her daughter Hasniza, who called an ambulance as she did not want the victim to die in their flat. 

Hasniza called the police and lied that the victim had appeared at their house with scars all over, smelling and appearing like she had been abused.

She was finally taken to hospital via an ambulance on Jan 16, 2018, in a dangerously ill state and was not expected to survive the next day, as she had pneumonia and sepsis from her wounds.

She was revived after eight hours of resuscitation in the Emergency Department and discharged more than three months after admission, but suffers permanent injuries to this day - including 10 missing teeth, permanent vision issues in her right eye and a deformed ear.

She was examined at the Institute of Mental Health and found to have mild intellectual disability that would have affected her ability to seek help.

The family did not come clean immediately. Hasmah lied to the investigating officer, claiming that the victim had showed up about two weeks prior dazed and smelling very bad. She also initially denied the full extent of her abuse, claiming that the scalding was accidental.

LESS RESISTANCE TO TORTURE THAN A CHILD

Citing the victim's vulnerability, Deputy Public Prosecutor Ng Jun Chong said the victim just "sat there" and allowed her toes to be twisted by the women.

"A child could have perhaps offered more resistance," he said.

Mr Ng, along with fellow prosecutors Mr Han Ming Kuang and Ms Grace Chua, sought 17 to 19 years' jail for Hasmah.

Hasmah pleaded guilty to five charges including causing grievous hurt with a dangerous weapon, wrongful confinement and lying to the police, with several others taken into consideration.

Defence lawyer Amarick Gill asked for 15 years instead, asking the court to consider his client's age and plea of guilt.

He kept his mitigation brief and said the plea of guilt had spared the traumatised victim "what would have been a significant cross-examination".

The plea has also saved the court time, as well as the time of the 49 prosecution witnesses who were set to testify.

The lawyer acknowledged the "horrors" descended on the victim by Hasmah and her family members and said he had not stated anything in his mitigation plea to slight the victim or even go into "whatever allegedly transpired to start this ruckus".

"Hasmah apologises to the victim, both for what she has done, and also what her children have done," said the lawyer.

He told the judge that her sentencing would bring closure to Hasmah, her family as well as the victim.

The prosecution did not seek a compensation order, saying Hasmah has been unemployed for some time and does not appear to have the financial means to make compensation.

Justice Valerie Thean said the offences were "really horrific", with the family forcing the victim into servitude and leaving her with permanent and serious injuries.

"I have taken into account that the accused is 73. If not for her age, given the overall seriousness of this ... I would have made more offences run consecutively, and the total sentence would be more than 20 years," said Justice Thean.

She allowed Hasmah to see her family before being taken to jail.

Hasmah's jail term is the longest of all her family members involved.

In 2021, Haslinda received eight-and-a-half years' jail for her involvement, while Hasniza was given three years.

Their brothers, Muhammad Iskandar Ismail and Muhammad Iski Ismail, who had lesser roles in the abuse, received eight months and about three months' jail respectively.

Haslinda's husband was given three weeks' jail in 2020 for slapping the victim's face on his wife's instruction.