Maid killer's mother says daughter was suffering from 'mental torture' because of the maid

SINGAPORE: The mother of a woman who abused a maid to death testified in her former son-in-law's trial on Wednesday (Jul 26), saying she was concerned that her daughter was suffering from "mental torture" because of the maid, whom she claimed could not do any work well.

Prema S Naraynasamy, who is serving 17 years' jail for her role in the fatal abuse of 24-year-old Myanmar maid Ms Piang Ngaih Don, broke down on the stand after saying that she had already lost one son to suicide.

Prema was escorted from prison to testify in the trial of 44-year-old suspended police officer Kevin Chelvam, who is her former son-in-law. Chelvam and Prema's daughter Gaiyathiri Murugayan divorced after the offences were discovered.

Chelvam is contesting four charges of hurting the maid, abetting Prema in starving her, removing evidence in the form of a closed-circuit television recorder and lying to the police.  

Prema, 64, told the court through an interpreter that she was "very close" to the maid, whom she called Don. However, she also said the maid did not speak much to her.

Prema claimed that the maid would eat breakfast whenever she went over to her daughter's house in Bishan, which was about three days a week.

Ms Don would eat roti prata, or chicken biryani with extra rice, if she accompanied Prema to the market in the morning. If not, Prema would give her four slices of bread for breakfast and a "big cup of coffee". 

Prema said Ms Don would also eat whatever the elderly woman cooked for lunch.

She claimed that her daughter would not restrict what Ms Don ate, adding that the maid once ate chicken biryani with extra rice at a market before finishing a second packet at home.

She said she fed Ms Don well, whether it was at her own home in Hougang or her daughter's flat.

This is in contrast to the prosecution's case, which is that Ms Don was starved and given very little food, often just single slices of bread soaked in water.

Prema said that she noticed the maid was losing weight around May or June 2016, and told her: "You eat so much and yet you are losing weight, but Amma eats so little and yet still fat."

Prema said there was a time the maid was getting "really skinny" and she told her daughter about this.

"I told her she was getting very thin, but I'm not sure why, because she does eat a lot. I told her that she might be sick," said Prema.

She said she did not know if Gaiyathiri told Chelvam about this.

DAUGHTER SUFFERED FROM "MENTAL TORTURE"

According to Prema, Ms Don "doesn't know anything, doesn't know how to cook" and "never does anything properly".

"With the maid there, (my daughter) felt like she was going to go crazy. She felt very stressed. She never does anything properly, we have to keep repeating our instructions to her over and over again," said Prema.

"She doesn't finish one work properly and go on to the next, she takes two to three hours to finish even one simple work. All of this gave Gaiyathiri a lot of stress. Gaiyathiri was suffering a lot."

Prema said her daughter told her that having Ms Don around was "a mental torture".

"She wanted to jump down with her children because of the stress. She not only told me, she also told her husband," said Prema.

The elderly woman said that because her son died by suicide, she was affected by what Gaiyathiri had told her.

"She told me she is suffering. 'I'm suffering, Ma,' is what she told me," said Prema. "She said she could not take the maid's torture anymore."

Gaiyathiri was later assessed by several psychiatrists to be suffering from postpartum depression and obsessive compulsive personality disorder at the time.

These conditions contributed to her offences and were part of the reason why her murder charge was downgraded to culpable homicide.

Prema said her daughter told her this so often that she decided to take Ms Don to stay with her in Hougang for a week. After that, Gaiyathiri told her mother that she was happy without the maid. 

Because of this, they decided to send Ms Don back home in August 2016, and got Ms Don to call her sister in Myanmar to tell her about it.

"I told Gaiyathiri that the maid was giving us a lot of issues. I said we will not take another one and she agreed," said Prema.

She said her daughter was waiting for Chelvam's salary so she could buy a plane ticket and prepare for the maid's return.

Ms Don was found dead of a brain injury on Jul 26, 2016 after severe blunt trauma to her neck. This was following a night when she was assaulted by both Prema and Gaiyathiri, tied to a window grille and left in wet clothes.

On autopsy, it was found that she had no food in her stomach, no internal fat in her stomach and her muscles had wasted away. 

She had lost 15kg in 10 months while working for the family and weighed only 24kg along with her body bag.

The trial continues.