Maid admits pinching, hitting and slapping one-year-old boy as her sleep was disrupted

SINGAPORE: A maid who was hired to care for a toddler and sleep in the same room with him abused him instead, as she was frustrated that her sleep was disrupted.

Nucom Loreta Talbo, a 30-year-old Filipino, also claimed that this was how she brought up her children in her hometown.

Nucom pleaded guilty on Wednesday (Jul 16) to one count of ill-treating a child over 22 occasions.

The court heard that the Nucom had worked in Singapore for about five years for three other households before working for the victim’s family from September 2023.

Her main role was to take care of the victim, with whom she shared a room.

At about 9.25pm on Jul 23, 2024, the victim’s parents heard loud cries from the boy, who was sleeping in his room with Nucom.

The parents watched the closed-circuit television footage in the room and saw Nucom hitting their son’s head once. She forcefully pushed a pacifier into his mouth and hit his head again.

Upon confrontation, Nucom denied hitting the victim, even though she was shown the CCTV footage.

The boy’s 36-year-old father called the police, who had Nucom removed from the household and lodged in a temporary shelter pending investigations.

The boy’s father then reviewed CCTV footage throughout Nucom’s employment and gave the relevant clips to the police that captured her rough-handling and physical abuse of the boy.

On at least 22 occasions between Mar 5, 2024 to Jul 23, 2024, Nucom could be seen abusing the boy in multiple ways, including turning him with force to put him to sleep in a playpen, hitting his head with her fist, prodding his head with her index finger to make him lie back down, hitting his head to scare him into closing his eyes and sleeping.

On one occasion, the boy was crying in his playpen when Nucom woke up and slapped him hard on his face. She then grabbed him by his head, pulled him upwards and placed him in the centre of the playpen, frustrated that her sleep had been disturbed, court documents stated.

When the boy woke up about three hours later, he stood up in the playpen. Nucom then hit his head with her fist and pushed him away from her before pinching his cheek, prompting his cries.

She forcefully carried him to make him lie down and slapped his face, before pushing his playpen forward and backwards and slapping his face again.

On another occasion, Nucom slapped the boy’s head five times, making him cry and hold onto his head. He tried to cover himself with a blanket, but Nucom pulled it away so she could hit him.

Two hours after this, the boy woke up crying and Nucom slapped his head six times consecutively, increasing the sound of his cries.

When he fell silent, Nucom placed a blanket over him and gave him a final hard slap on his head, angry at not having enough sleep.

The boy continued to move around intermittently in his playpen. Nucom watched him before hitting his head. The boy burst out crying and held his head.

On another occasion, Nucom slapped the boy, tried to pull his hair but failed, and forcibly fed him with a milk bottle.

One night in July 2024, Nucom was talking on the phone when the boy woke up. Nucom placed his pacifier back in his mouth, but it fell out and she hit his head.

She then pushed the pacifier forcefully into his mouth, hit him again and slapped his face while the boy cried.

Nucom later admitted to committing the acts, claiming she had brought up her children this way.

She said she was frustrated that the boy had cried so much, disrupting her sleep. As a result, she would show him “an angry face” and hit him.

The boy did not receive medical attention as his parents were not aware of the prior abuse.

The CCTV captured only about four months’ worth of footage as it was faulty and did not capture footage from September 2023 to March 2024.

However, the boy’s infant care teacher had found injuries on his body on Dec 27, 2023. When confronted with this, Nucom denied causing the injuries.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Heershan Kaur sought 30 months’ jail for Nucom. She said the accused was entrusted with the care of a defenceless one-year-old child, but chose cruelty over compassion, and became a perpetrator instead of a protector.

The case involved a sustained pattern of abuse, inflicted on “someone utterly helpless and voiceless”, said Ms Kaur.

She noted that parliament had doubled the penalty for such offences from four years to eight years’ jail in 2019, expressing “the clear abhorrence” that parliament has for child abuse.

The courts have also warned that violence against children will be met with the full force of the law, said Ms Kaur.

She pointed to the “extreme youth and vulnerability of the victim”, who was between 11 months and a year old at the time.

“It suffices to say the child was mistreated and abused purely because of her selfish desire to have uninterrupted sleep,” said Ms Kaur.

She added that the abuse could have been going on for longer, but the CCTV footage for the earlier period could not be retrieved.

The intensity of abuse also increased over time, from rough-handling and prodding to multiple slaps and hits, she said.

There was also a lack of remorse, with Nucom denying her involvement when the parents confronted her with the footage, said Ms Kaur.

Nucom was remanded. She asked the court for forgiveness through an interpreter and said she hoped her employer would forgive her for what she had done.

The judge adjourned sentencing to give her a chance to speak to a representative from the Philippine Embassy.