Former preschool teacher jailed for ill-treating 2-year-old girl

“In my view, if this were so, the child would be rendered even more vulnerable and the culpability of the accused correspondingly higher,” she said.

Judge Ong also said that Wu had breached the trust placed in her as an early childhood educator.

Noting the victim’s young age, she said this meant the girl was not only defenceless against Wu’s actions, but could not proactively seek help from others or report the abuse.

At trial, Wu said she had intended only to control the situation and get the child to calm down.

She also argued that she suffered from major depressive disorder, was stressed by her heavy workload and was not trained to handle a child who may have special needs or was experiencing slower development.

Wu also argued that the school did not take her feedback about the child’s suspected condition seriously.

In her verdict, the judge had rejected Wu’s submissions and found that the prosecution had proven the charge beyond a reasonable doubt.

The judge previously said the psychiatric report tendered by Wu was “bereft” of supporting evidence and reasoning for its conclusions, including that Wu’s alleged condition had a causal link to the offence.

Judge Ong said Wu attempted to downplay the intensity of her actions, particularly the force she had used on the child.

This was by describing her actions as “inappropriate”, that her actions appeared to be exaggerated, and that she was “not gentle enough”.

Wu also pointed to the lack of medical evidence linking her acts to any injury and the lack of direct testimony from the child in arguing that her acts did not cause any pain or harm to the child.

Judge Ong said the court did not need such evidence before making a finding that her acts had caused the child pain.

Wu intially requested to start her jail term one week later to settle personal matters, but her bailor declined to continue putting up the bail amount of S$10,000 (US$7,700) for her.

For ill-treating a child, she could have been jailed for up to eight years, fined up to S$8,000 or both.