An Indonesian domestic helper was sentenced to a year in jail after she was convicted for causing hurt to her employer’s 14 year old son by deliberately pouring hot oil on him.
The helper, Sugianti who is 20 years older than the boy, could have been jailed for up to 7 years and/or fined for committing the offence but is believed to have received a lighter sentence given the circumstances surrounding the attack.
Sugianti’s attack on the boy appears to be a culmination of spats between her and the boy which began on 15 Feb when the helper scolded the boy for spilling liquids on the floor supposedly causing his sister to slip and fall.
The helper’s admonishments irritated the boy and caused him to shout at the helper who yelled back at the boy. Frustrated, the teenager trashed a shelf in the helper’s bedroom holding her possession.
The boy later replaced the items and tidied the shelf, worried that Sugianti – who had been employed with his family since October 2016 – would bring the matter up to his father.
Later that day, Sugianti was frying chicken wings when she again scolded the boy. The boy responded by covering her mouth from behind and pulling on her hair to stop her from scolding him further. Sugianti shook the frying pan at the boy a few times and called him a “devil’s son.”
Upset, the boy scratched her face and walked away.
Sugianti was incensed and challenged the boy to a fight, which the boy declined. This was when the helper lifted the frying pan and poured hot oil on the boy, scalding his arm and leg.
The boy cried in shock and was taken to a polyclinic the next day. A police report was subsequently lodged.
The helper was also treated at Changi General Hospital for a claw mark under her right eye and for having a sore back.
Sugianti’s lawyer pleaded for leniency, adding that the helper had suffered much verbal abuse from the boy.
In sentencing the helper, the judge noted a certain amount of malice and intention on the helper’s part and ruled that a deterrent sentence was necessary.