Former pre-school teacher gets jail for ill-treating 4-year-old boy with special needs
She handled him roughly when he would not go to sleep at naptime and pulled his ears.
File photo of a boy. (Photo: iStock)
SINGAPORE: A former pre-school teacher was sentenced to 10 months' jail on Wednesday (Jan 11) for ill-treating a four-year-old boy with special needs when he did not go to sleep at naptime.
The 52-year-old woman, who cannot be named due to gag orders protecting the victim's identity, had earlier pleaded guilty to one count of ill-treating the boy under the Children and Young Persons Act.
A second charge of using criminal force on the boy was considered in sentencing.
The boy had delayed speech development, starting to speak only when he was five and had difficulty maintaining eye contact with others from a young age.
On Dec 2, 2020, the offender tried to put the boy to sleep in a designated sleeping room but became angry and frustrated when she did not succeed.
Feeling tired and hungry as she had not eaten lunch, she pulled the boy up by his shoulders and pushed him forward, causing him to roll on the floor and land outside his sleeping mat.
She also dragged the boy across the floor by the forearm, with the child struggling to get a foothold.
She pulled his ears, scratching both sides of his neck in the process, and the boy covered his ears in pain.
The woman's colleague heard the boy crying at some point, but the offender continued to treat the boy roughly.
The boy's mother saw marks on her son and later lodged a police report. The school paid for the victim's medical bills and the offender was fired two days after the incident.
Defence lawyer Chung Ting Fai tried asking for probation for his client, or eight months' jail in the alternative.
He said his client was diagnosed with severe agitated depression for the past three years, due to work and family pressure.
He acknowledged that his client knew the victim had special needs and was suspected to have autism spectrum disorder, but said his client was not specifically trained to handle kids with special needs.
The prosecutor objected to a portion of the mitigation which said the accused was "provoked" by the "very active autistic child".
District Judge John Ng said the defence's request for placing the accused on probation cannot be allowed and is "misplaced" as the sentencing principle in this case is not rehabilitation but deterrence.
"There is no place for an adult caregiver of a young child in any setting to cause any injury to the person, or ward, or child in the care of the adult, no matter how strained or stressed he or she might be," said Judge Ng.
However, he took into account the woman's remorse. He said she had taken care of other children properly and has pleaded guilty, so the sentence should be "deterrent enough but not too long".
He allowed the woman to defer her jail term until after Chinese New Year.
