SINGAPORE: A maid who cared for an 11-month-old baby was jailed for 20 months on Thursday (Feb 6) for biting and pinching the boy.
The injuries caused bite marks and bruising.
The woman, a 24-year-old Myanmar national, admitted that she did this because she was frustrated when the child would not sleep.
In her mitigation, she said that she was assigned to sleep with the baby, and was only able to go to bed after midnight every day. During the day, she would have to perform household chores without any rest, she added.
“I did not have enough sleep every day,” she told the court through a Burmese interpreter.
However, District Judge Paul Chan said this did not lower the woman’s culpability or carry any mitigating weight on her sentence.
“Even if it was correct that the accused was deprived of sleep, there was no need to resort to abusing an innocent child and it was wholly disproportionate for the accused to have done so,” he said.
The woman’s name is redacted as there is a gag order on the case to protect the identity of the victim.
The court heard that she cared for the three children in her employer’s household, including the victim.
Her employer first noticed a bite mark on the baby’s left forearm on Nov 6, 2024.
When the maid was asked about it, she claimed that the baby would occasionally bite himself and that this could have caused the mark.
She subsequently admitted to biting him because she was frustrated when he refused to sleep.
On Nov 20, 2024, the maid told her employer that she had found a bite mark on the baby’s right forearm while bathing him. When questioned about it, she said she did not know how it happened.
The baby’s mother checked footage from a closed-circuit television camera in the house.
She saw that on Nov 19, 2024, the maid had picked the baby up from his cot when he woke up crying. The baby was seen arching away from the maid and wailing.
The mother suspected that the maid had pinched the baby’s waist, and she confronted her on Nov 24, 2024.
The maid admitted to pinching the baby twice on his waist while carrying him on that occasion, as she was frustrated he would not sleep. She also admitted to biting his arm out of frustration sometime on or before Nov 20, 2024.
The woman’s employer made a police report on Nov 24, 2024.
Deputy Public Prosecutor DPP J Jayaletchmi sought a jail term of 16 to 20 months.
Highlighting the victim’s vulnerabilty, she said: “He was at her mercy and he was unable to raise any alarm.”
She also said that the maid abused the trust placed in her to care for the baby, and continually tried to evade detection by lying to the victim’s parents about the bite marks.
The maid, who did not have a lawyer, apologised for her actions and said she hoped to be sent back to Myanmar as soon as possible to care for her mother.
In sentencing, Judge Chan stressed that the courts have held “in no uncertain terms” that violence against children will not be tolerated.
“It is important to state that children are vulnerable persons and must be given the full protection of the law,” he said.
The punishment for ill-treating a child is a jail term of up to eight years, a fine of up to S$8,000 (US$5,900) or both.
