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MOTHER OF GIRL WHO WAS KILLED, BURNT AND LEFT IN POT GETS 14 YEARS' JAIL FOR
CHILD ABUSE, PERVERTING JUSTICE
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Singapore
MOTHER OF GIRL WHO WAS KILLED, BURNT AND LEFT IN POT GETS 14 YEARS' JAIL FOR
CHILD ABUSE, PERVERTING JUSTICE
The mother of seven physically assaulted her children and left them at home
without food or water.
File photo of the State Courts in Singapore. (Photo: Calvin Oh)
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Mother of girl who was killed, burnt and left in pot gets 14 years' jail for
child abuse, perverting justice
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* Fresh details in the woman's case revealed the abuse of her other children
and how social workers tried to intervene
* Her offences were discovered through at least five unannounced home visits by
case workers, including one occasion where the children asked an officer for
water as they had not had any for about a day
* A letter from the woman's eldest son was read out in court but the judge said
the forgiving attitude of a victim should not affect the sentence to be
imposed
LYDIA LAM
@LydiaLamCNA
Lydia Lam
07 Feb 2024 03:22PM (Updated: 07 Feb 2024 07:12PM)
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SINGAPORE: The mother of a two-year-old girl who was killed by her father and
her body burnt in a pot was sentenced to 14 years’ jail on Wednesday (Feb 7) for
abusing her children and perverting justice.
The 35-year-old woman, who cannot be named to protect her surviving children,
had helped her then-husband cover up the death of their daughter Umaisyah, who
was about two-and-a-half years old in 2014.
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He was sentenced last September to 21-and-a-half years' jail and 18 strokes of
the cane.
The judge decided at the time that the gag order on Umaisyah's identity be
partially lifted so that she could be remembered by her name and not just as a
victim.
Fresh details in the woman's case revealed the abuse of her other children and
how social workers tried to intervene.
Even after Umaisyah died, the woman neglected her surviving children by leaving
them at home unsupervised with the kitchen windows and main door left open, at
times without enough food or water.
She pleaded guilty on Wednesday to three charges of ill-treating her children
under the Children and Young Persons Act, and a fourth charge of perverting
justice by covering up her daughter's death.
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Another eight charges were considered in sentencing - including for lying to a
Child Protective Service (CPS) officer that she had six children when she had
seven, deliberately omitting Umaisyah.
UMAISYAH'S CASE
Court documents revealed a troubled picture of the family.
The woman abused her eldest son, who was five or six, between March 2013 and
March 2014 by hitting him with a belt and hanger. She also slapped and punched
him, and fed him chilli and garlic as punishment.
Umaisyah was placed in foster care when she was three or four months old in
November 2011, as her father was at a drug rehabilitation centre and her mother
was assessed to be unable to take care of her.
She was returned to her parents' care in June 2013.
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On an unspecified day in March 2014, Umaisyah's parents were upset with her as
she had been playing with faeces after soiling her diaper and she cried despite
being asked not to.
Umaisyah's mother slapped her cheeks until they turned red and hit her, while
Umaisyah tried to hold back her tears.
Umaisyah's father, who had taken drugs, forcefully slapped her and caused a
traumatic brain injury leading to a concussive brain seizure.
To hide their tracks, they burnt Umaisyah's body in a metal pot, placed it in a
cardboard box and covered it in cling wrap before stashing it under the kitchen
stove in their flat.
The pot stayed there for more than five years while Umaisyah's parents offered
various excuses and lies to government officials about her whereabouts.
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The girl's body was found when her uncle opened the pot. It was burnt beyond
recognition and reduced to charred remains, small bones and a loose tooth.
ABUSE OF OTHER CHILDREN
Investigations revealed that the woman had neglected four of her children - aged
between two and 10 at the time - from 2017, about three years after Umaisyah's
death.
This was discovered through at least five unannounced home visits to the flat by
case workers. At that time, the children were in their mother's custody as their
estranged father no longer stayed with them.
No adult was home during all five house visits.
On one occasion, on Sep 26, 2017, a case worker from Kreta Ayer Family Services
(KAFS) found that the eldest son, then 10, was left alone at home to care for
his siblings aged seven, three and two.
The two oldest kids did not attend school that day. The eldest son told the case
worker that he did not know where his mother was, and that she had left them
unsupervised before.
The case worker, Mr Mohamed Ghazali Mohamad Effendy, ran through a simple safety
plan with the eldest boy and told him what to do in case of an emergency. He
tried to contact the offender but could not reach her.
When he visited again on Nov 2, 2017, the eldest boy was similarly left alone to
care for his three younger siblings and did not attend school.
A day later, Mr Ghazali found the two toddlers alone at home.
He noted that the flat was in a state of disarray. The kitchen windows were open
without any grilles, and the main gate and door were left ajar. Mr Ghazali
called the children's mother thrice but she did not answer.
He waited for about an hour and a half before the woman returned. Mr Ghazali
told her not to leave her two young children at home unattended again.
During another visit on Dec 21, 2017, the eldest son was seen cooking instant
noodles for himself and his siblings. He did not know where his mother was.
A few days later on Dec 29, Mr Ghazali and another social worker visited the
flat after the woman did not show up for an appointment with KAFS. All four
children were again left alone in the flat.
Mr Ghazali flagged the case to CPS after one of his visits. CPS made a referral
and Mr Ghazali contacted a partner organisation with the Ministry of Social and
Family Development - Big Love Child Protection Specialist Centre - for help.
The specialist centre tried to engage the offender and made two visits to her
flat, but she did not cooperate. Instead, she slammed the door on a case worker.
During one visit, the case worker noticed two children who were wearing only
diapers in the flat. Because their mother was unwilling to cooperate, the
specialist centre referred the case to CPS on the basis that there was
inadequate adult supervision of the children.
CPS followed up on the case and found that the eldest son's primary school had
reported the boy's poor attendance to MOE's compulsory education unit.
Despite the involvement of MOE's compulsory education unit in September 2017,
the offender's children continued to skip classes with no valid reason. The
offender often ignored phone calls and text messages from her children's school.
In January 2018, the two oldest children attended only two days of school.
During another house visit on Feb 9, 2018, a CPS officer observed that the four
children were again left alone at home. The children asked the officer for
water, as they had not had water for about a day.
The eldest son said they only had some sausages and there was no other food at
home. Their mother had not returned home from the day before.
The CPS officer tried contacting their mother but could not. The officer then
assessed that the children needed to be removed from the flat and called the
police for help.
MSF activated their "after-hours lead emergency response" team to locate the
mother, but could not contact her. She eventually turned up at MSF at about 7pm
that day.
She continued to miss appointments discussing arrangements for her children and
the four children in her care were later placed in foster homes.
SENTENCING ARGUMENTS
Deputy Public Prosecutor Norine Tan and her team asked for 14 years to
14-and-a-half years' jail for the offender.
"It is a very serious case whereby the parents, after their child had passed
away, instead of a proper funeral, a proper send-off, what they did was to cover
their tracks to avoid being exposed," said Ms Tan.
"They destroyed the evidence so extensively that nobody even knew about the
death for five-and-a-half years."
Calling this the most serious case of its kind to come before the courts, Ms Tan
said the offences were "entirely motivated out of self-interest" as the parents
were afraid of being exposed.
The offender, a woman of small stature with a short ponytail and glasses, stood
in the dock listening quietly during the hearing.
Ms Tan said spot checks by different agencies found that the accused had
"irresponsibly and wilfully" neglected her children.
Two of them attended school very infrequently despite wanting to go to school,
because their mother had asked them to stay home and take care of the other
kids, said Ms Tan.
The first house visit took place in September 2017 and the children were taken
away in February 2018. They were later placed in foster homes.
Ms Tan said the offender was given multiple warnings but persisted in her
neglect of the children, even after Umaisyah's death.
SHE WAS ABUSED HERSELF: DEFENCE
Lawyers Pramnath Vijayakumar and Sadhana Rai from Pro Bono SG asked for a lower
jail term, pointing to the woman's history of abuse.
Ms Rai cited a 2019 Institute of Mental Health report where the woman told a
doctor that her stepfather had tried to molest her since she was 13.
She said his acts escalated and she ran away from home at the age of 15 because
of the molestation. She claimed her stepfather had attempted to rape her and she
told her mother about it, but her mother did not believe her.
After the birth of her youngest son in 2015, the offender said she sat on a
window ledge and contemplated suicide, because her then-husband would not return
home for days at a stretch.
He also ignored her and their children, swore at her and beat her up, the woman
alleged.
She was only dissuaded by her children who cried and implored her not to leave
them.
The judge pointed out that just because an offender is abused, it does not
justify abuse of her children.
In response, Ms Sadhana Rai said she was merely trying to characterise her
client's own experience and abuse which shaped the "horrendous" decisions she
made.
Ms Rai read out a letter to the offender by her eldest son. He said he hoped his
mother was okay and that he misses her very much and prays for her to "come out
soon".
He asked her not to worry, saying he gets to visit his siblings and is hoping
for good N-Level results.
He said he loves his mother despite everything and hopes to spend time with her.
"I feel that if you were here with me now, my happiness would be at the next
level," wrote the boy. "Please take good care of yourself. I know you are strong
and you are a fighter. Dear God, please release my mother soon so I can be with
her. I love you more than anything else in this world."
Principal District Judge Toh Han Li, in sentencing, said the Court of Appeal has
held that the forgiving attitude of a victim should not affect the sentence to
be imposed.
It is a private matter between victim and offender and should not be allowed to
influence the appropriate sentence, said Judge Toh.
He rejected the defence's argument that their client was a passive follower of
her then-husband, saying she did not eventually own up to the police, but
instead had "every intention" to deny the machinery of justice.
He gave her the maximum sentence for perverting justice, rejecting the defence's
argument that her culpability was lower than her former husband's.
Judge Toh said that allowing an offender's past violence to explain or mitigate
violence on the offender's children, thereby perpetuating the cycle of abuse,
runs counter to the principle of deterrence.
Source: CNA/ll(rj)
RELATED TOPICS
court Crime child abuse
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