Former pre-school teacher gets 10 months’ jail for ill-treating 2-year-old girl

Deputy Principal District Judge Ong Chin Rhu had earlier convicted her of ill-treating the child after a trial.

There is a gag order on the victim’s identity and the location of the incident.

DPP Matthew Choo told the court that Wu, who was employed as a Chinese language teacher at the time of the offence, was scheduled to teach the victim’s class on May 11, 2022.

She later ill-treated the child from 10.17am to 11.22am.

The victim left the school that afternoon, and her mother later told the centre’s principal about the scratch on her daughter’s face.

The principal said that she would look into the matter and viewed the CCTV footage the next day.

Wu’s employment was terminated later that day.

In submissions, DPP Jheong told the court that based on the CCTV footage and Wu’s own evidence, it was apparent that she had wilfully carried out the acts.

The prosecutor added: “She had also provided detailed explanations of her thought process behind each of the… acts, which points to the fact that she had performed the said acts consciously and deliberately.”

In her defence, Wu, who was not represented by a lawyer, said that she was suffering from major depressive disorder (MDD) at the time of the offence.

DPP Jheong said Wu had not provided any objective evidence to support her assertion apart from a “psychological report” by a doctor dated Dec 19, 2024.

The prosecutor told the court that the report was “fatally deficient and did not meet the standards expected of an expert witness”.

Among other things, the DPP told Judge Ong that the doctor’s report was vague.

“(The doctor’s) report appears to be based solely off of self-reported information provided by the accused and the accused’s friends and families,” DPP Jheong added.

“(The doctor) would not have been able to accurately or reliably assess whether the accused suffered from MDD at the material time of the offences.”