In an effort to discipline his wife’s son, this stepfather stepped beyond his boundaries and used excessive force against the seven-year-old boy whose misdeed was simply staying up past his bedtime.
The 36-year-old man has since been sentenced to six months in jail after pleading guilty to ill-treating his stepson last year, while a second charge of child abuse involving his four-year-old stepdaughter was taken into consideration. Channel NewsAsia reports that he had slapped the girl and his wife as well.
Around 9pm on Aug 5, 2014, the man had noticed that his stepson fidgeting in bed with a headband instead of sleeping. Angered, the man then decided to test the boy with some math questions — if the answer was wrong, the boy would be pinched on his inner thighs. He also yelled at the boy during the commotion.
The boy’s mother then came over to the room to find the him crying from getting pinched and slapped in the face a couple of times. When she tried to intervene, she got slapped too. He left the room afterwards, as his wife calmed the boy down and put him in bed.
It was at school the next day that the boy’s teacher noticed he was sporting severe bruising on his inner thighs, and had difficulty walking as well. A medical report later on would find that the bruise on his face 2.5cm by 6cm, while the bruise on his inner thigh measured 14cm by 13cm.
The teacher sent him to National University Hospital and alerted the police.
In court, the prosecution pushed for a sentence of between six and nine months’ jail due to the unprovoked nature of the attack — the boy had posed no disciplinary problems to his stepfather to warrant the punishment. The judge concluded that the boy needs the court’s protection, and reiterated that the ill-treatment of a child is a serious offence.
