A maid who threw a five-year-old child on the ground twice, was jailed for eight months earlier today (August 20).
According to a report on CNA, the 24-year-old domestic helper from Indonesia, who cannot be named, pleaded guilty to one charge of ill-treating the child, under the Children and Young Persons Act.
Ironically, the mother of the boy was made aware of the incident only after she saw a video on Facebook taken by a 32-year-old Chinese national who witnessed the incident.
The video went viral and it was only then that the victim’s mother recognised her son and the maid, and made a police report.
The boy’s mother made a police report after she saw the video on social media.
In March this year, at a field in Punggol, the maid picked the boy up, but he struggled. She retaliated by smacking his buttocks.
When the child continued to struggle and resist, she threw him onto the ground and picked him up again, before hurling him onto the ground again.
She brought him back home that day as per normal. However, at home the child told his mother that the maid had thrown him to the ground, and that he felt pain in his chest.
The maid denied this.
After watching the video on social media, and making a police report, the boy’s mother took him to the hospital three days after the incident, on March 15.
The boy was found to have tenderness over his spine and chest area.
The CNA report said that the maid, who was unrepresented, told the judge tearfully through an interpreter that she would like to apologise to her employer for what she had done and asked for a lighter sentence.
She could have been jailed for up to four years, fined a maximum of S$4,000, or both for ill-treating a child in her care. /TISG