A nine-year-old boy, entrusted into the care of his aunt after his parents were imprisoned, ended up a victim of horrific abuse instead. Family did not come first for his 39-year-old aunt, who was sentenced to a 10-month jail sentence yesterday for attacking the kid multiple times.
According to The Straits Times, the woman abused her nephew by striking his head with an extendable pole hanger twice, hitting his elbow and leg with a pestle, burning his arms four times with the heated side of a modified gas lighter, and smacking his head with a back scratcher.
On Feb 3 last year, the boy spotted his aunt breathing in fumes from a burning white substance. Terrified of being hit by her, he fled the scene, but she dragged him back to the flat.
The kid was forced to squat on the floor while she made threats against him to hurl him out the third-storey kitchen window. His aunt eventually grabbed him by the legs and dangled him out the window, where he clutched on to a bamboo pole in fear that she would actually let him fall.
But the abuse didn’t end there — he was later hit and burned with a lighter.
It was only after a teacher discovered his injuries that Child Protection Services was alerted, and the boy was treated for multiple injuries, ST noted.
He’s now in an orphanage.
In court, the woman’s lawyer explained that his client took the boy into her care in spite of her financial circumstances with five children and two stepchildren. Since Feb 9 last year, she has been in drug rehabilitation, and will be released next month.
Of her actions, District Judge Lim Keng Yeow said, “Acts of abuse against vulnerable children, especially when carried out by someone responsible for safeguarding their well-being, will always be regarded as particularly reprehensible and deserving of the full force of the law.”
The accused, whose sentence was backdated to Sept 22, remains unnamed to protect the identity of the boy. She could have been fined a maximum of S$4,000 and/or jailed up to four years for ill-treating him.
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