On Wednesday (May 17), a 26-year-old man was sentenced to seven years’ jail and nine strokes of the cane for multiple incidents of child abuse, both physical and psychological. His four-year-old stepdaughter suffered for about two months under his roof, and a medical examination revealed that she had 29 injuries, including a broken rib, a buckle fracture on her forearm, and bruises all over her body.
The stepfather, a bus driver by occupation, confessed to causing grievous hurt to the child on Nov 16 last year, as well as two charges of child abuse, including an incident last September where he hit her on the head with the base of a broken fan.
The Nov 16 incident started with him reprimanding his stepdaughter for picking at scabs on her hand. He told her to go to the toilet, but scolded her when he found urine there. He then used a slipper to hit her head, and when she smeared the blood from her head and hand on the toilet wall, he went berserk.
The man attacked her with a series of physical assaults, including slapping and punching her on the face, biting her arms, pulling her hair, kicking her abdomen, and strangling her. Even an attempted intervention by his 22-year-old wife did nothing except provoke a scolding from him.
According to The Straits Times, the next day, the girl’s grandmother discovered the bite marks on her arms, as well as her swollen face and right arm, and she filed a police report.
A child psychiatrist said the victim would often awaken at night and become agitated at the mention of the word ‘daddy’. Deputy Public Prosecutor Jason Chua said the accused attacked the child because he was unhappy with his wife or he wanted the woman’s attention. Reportedly, the number of child abuse cases investigated rose from 551 in 2015 to 873 last year.
