A judge today ordered a man to be assessed psychologically prior to sentencing after he pleaded guilty to abusing his mother for years, including assaulting her genitalia.
Though prosecutors want Andy Koh Ju Hua, 30, jailed for 30 weeks on four counts of voluntarily causing hurt, District Judge Kessler Soh asked that he be assessed in consideration of treatment over jail time.
“I love my mother a lot and I do not know why I committed all those silly things to her. I need to undergo treatment to overcome my psychotic disorder,” Koh said. “I hope to undergo treatment and cure myself, so that I can live happily ever after with my mother. She is not young anymore, and I certainly wish to take care of her in her remaining days.”
Those “silly” things include heinous acts of abuse that began in 2017, including starving and refusing to let her speak, denying her baths and physical abuse that included striking her repeatedly in the vagina with his knee and a padlock.
Koh had been pursuing a master’s degree at the National University of Singapore while the abuse was happening. She was thrice hospitalized, where she kept the abuse a secret and told doctors she had fallen. She finally went to the police in June after Koh punched her in the mouth three times. She also fled their home to a nephew and niece.
Medical reports showed she suffered extensive bruises to her face, abdomen, buttocks, lower limbs and external genitalia.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Magdalene Huang is fighting for him to spend at least 30 weeks behind bars, quoting from a report by the Institute of Mental Health that said Koh displayed “a complete lack of remorse.”
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