SINGAPORE – A man who abused primary school pupils under his charge at a private educational facility was sentenced to nine years and 10 months’ jail and eight strokes of the cane on Aug 21.
He punched the children, beat them with a clothes hanger until it broke on one occasion and even forced one of the victims – a six-year-old boy – to drink his own urine.
That boy was also made to keep a push-up position from 3.45pm one day to the next morning.
As a result of the man’s abuse, the boy suffered rib fractures, kidney failure and had to undergo dialysis for nine days.
The 31-year-old Singaporean had pleaded guilty on July 9 to child abuse, voluntarily causing grievous hurt and providing false or misleading information to the Ministry of Manpower.
He cannot be named due to a gag order protecting the identity of the children, who were aged between six and 11 at the time of the offences in 2023.
As the judge was delivering the sentence, the offender kept his head down and occasionally looked towards his family, who were in court.
District Judge John Ng said the facts spoke for themselves when it came to the brutality of the acts committed on the victims, especially the six-year-old boy.
The judge said the boy was hit at least 600 times and was stomped on his back and buttocks at least 40 times.
He brought up the defence’s mitigation of the offender having an alcoholic father and a gangster older brother who physically abused him as a young boy.
But he said that “this does not excuse the behaviour and cruel acts that he committed on the victims”.
“Being a young boy who had suffered at the hands of abusers, the offender should have been in a better position not to repeat such treatment to vulnerable victims who had trusted him to care for them and protect them,” the judge added.
Deputy public prosecutors Timotheus Koh and Cheronne Lim said the offender had abused the trust placed in him to care for the victims and subjected them to violence.
Highlighting the man’s abuse of the six-year-old boy, the prosecutors said: “The accused cruelly deprived him of food, mocked him, made him drink his own urine, hit him hundreds of times with a hanger, stomped on him, kicked him in the ribs, forced him to hold a stress position for more than 18 hours, and after all this, intentionally deprived him of medical attention for three days because he feared that the police would be alerted to the abuse.”
The prosecutors added that because of this, the boy suffered critical, life-threatening injuries.
The judge rejected the offender’s request to defer his sentence for a week to attend prayers. But the man was given time to speak to his family before being led away by officers.
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