SINGAPORE: A woman who together with her husband ill-treated her two stepchildren, including starving them, was sentenced to six years and three months’ jail on March 13.
The children were so undernourished that they were found to be below the third percentile of their age group, which meant that 97 per cent of the other children in their age group were bigger and heavier than them.
In sentencing the woman, District Judge Eugene Teo said: “This case involves the ill-treatment of the especially vulnerable, which stretched from hours, to days, to weeks, to months.
“It is painfully ironic now to seek mercy when so little was shown to those two children.”
The woman’s husband had earlier received an unprecedented sentence of 34½ years’ jail and 12 strokes of the cane on April 30, 2024, over the death of his daughter, Ayeesha.
His sentence was increased to life imprisonment in July 2025, after his appeal for a reduced term failed.
Ayeesha was five years old when she died in 2017 of a head injury inflicted by her father. Her brother, who survived the abuse, was about four years old then.
The court heard that the woman had barricaded the children in the corner of a room measuring around 90cm by 90cm from February to October 2016. She let them out only for meals and baths.
The siblings were also confined naked in a bathroom from October 2016 to August 2017.
In January 2025, the 35-year-old woman was charged with four counts of ill-treating a child, and two counts of giving false information to a public servant with the intent to cause him or her to use lawful powers to the injury of another person.
She pleaded guilty on March 13 to two charges of ill-treating a child, and one charge of making a false police report.
She and her husband cannot be named to protect the identity of the boy. Justice Aedit Abdullah had earlier allowed Ayeesha to be identified “so that society may remember her”.
The husband was originally charged with murder, but pleaded guilty in 2023 to a reduced charge of culpable homicide for Ayeesha’s death, four charges of child abuse and one charge of disposing of evidence.
Another 20 charges, for child abuse and for lying to the police, were taken into consideration.
The woman, who has a daughter from her previous marriage, had married the man in 2015. The two victims were her husband’s children from his previous marriage.
The man, who had martial arts training, began abusing his two children in 2015 by underfeeding them. They were so hungry that they ate their own faeces and the stuffing of a mattress.
The court heard that days before she died, the man had slapped Ayeesha 15 to 20 times. He also punched the siblings on their backs.
Ayeesha died on Aug 11, 2017, after her father kicked and stamped on her at about 3am.
The woman discovered the girl had died when she entered the toilet in the evening.
She saw the boy facing the wall and Ayeesha facing up with her eyes closed. As she wanted to use the toilet, she asked Ayeesha to turn away, but the latter was unresponsive.
She realised the girl’s body was cold when she touched her left cheek.
She shouted for the man, who came and tried to lift Ayeesha’s body, which was stiff. He administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Ayeesha but was unable to resuscitate her.
Realising the girl was dead, he tried to get rid of evidence by throwing away the CCTV camera used to monitor the children.
He also instructed the woman to file a police report against him for beating her up and raping her, as part of their plan to cover up Ayeesha’s death.
On Aug 12, 2017, he took Ayeesha’s body and her brother in a pram to Singapore General Hospital, where he lied to the staff that the girl had become unresponsive that morning.
While the man was with the children at the hospital, the woman went to Bukit Merah West Neighbourhood Police Centre to file the police report.
After Ayeesha was pronounced dead by doctors at the hospital, the man lied to the police that she had sustained an injury after she hit her head on a slide at a playground.
It was only when he was confronted with footage from police surveillance cameras contradicting his story that he admitted to the lies.
Ayeesha’s brother was admitted to hospital after being rescued. He was not able to stand by himself despite being almost four years old.
He spent more than three months in hospital before he was well enough to be placed in foster care.
The boy, who is a year younger than Ayeesha, was diagnosed with global developmental delay due to social deprivation.
He had to undergo physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy.
The prosecution sought five to seven years’ jail for the woman, noting that she had chosen to plead guilty while her co-accused had claimed trial to his charges.
The woman’s lawyer, Ashwin Ganapathy from the Public Defender’s Office, asked for a jail term of five years.
For ill-treating a child, an offender can be jailed for up to four years, fined up to S$4,000 (US$3,127), or both.
Those convicted of giving false information to a public servant can be jailed for up to a year, fined up to $5,000, or both. - The Straits Times/ANN
