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SINGAPORE \u2013\u00a0Suspended\u00a0police officer\u00a0Kevin\u00a0Chelvam, the third and final person to be convicted over the fatal abuse of a domestic worker, had his jail sentence raised from 10 years to 11\u00bd years on July 31.<\/p>\n
The victim, 24-year-old Piang Ngaih Don, weighed a mere 24kg when she died on July 26, 2016.<\/p>\n
Chelvam\u2019s sentence was increased after the High Court allowed the prosecution\u2019s appeal against his sentence for one of the four charges he was convicted of.<\/p>\n
He was sentenced by a district judge<\/span><\/a> to 10 years\u2019 jail in July 2025 after he was found guilty of four charges for his involvement in one of Singapore\u2019s\u00a0worst fatal\u00a0domestic helper abuse cases.<\/p>\n Chelvam\u2019s former wife, Gaiyathiri Murugayan, was sentenced to 30 years in prison<\/span><\/a> in 2021, the longest jail term meted out here in such cases.<\/p>\n She had pleaded guilty to 28 charges, including one of culpable homicide. Another 87 charges were considered during sentencing.<\/p>\n Her mother, Prema S. Naraynasamy, was sentenced to 14 years\u2019 jail in 2023 after pleading guilty to 48 domestic helper abuse charges.<\/p>\n Prema was given three more years\u2019 jail in June that year<\/span><\/a> for instigating Chelvam to dismantle the CCTV recorder, bringing the total to 17 years.<\/p>\n Unlike the two women, who pleaded guilty to their charges, Chelvam claimed trial.<\/p>\n He was eventually convicted of one count of abetting Gaiyathiri to cause grievous hurt to the victim by starving the helper, and one count of causing hurt to the victim by grabbing her hair\u00a0and lifting her off the ground.<\/p>\n Chelvam was also convicted of one count of causing evidence to disappear by dismantling the CCTV recorder in the flat, and one count of lying to an investigating officer.<\/p>\n On July 31, the prosecution appealed against the one-year jail term handed down to Chelvam for the charge of causing hurt.<\/p>\n Deputy Public Prosecutor Stephanie Koh argued that the district judge was wrong to have pegged this as a case where less serious physical and psychological harm was caused.<\/p>\n The prosecutor argued that Chelvam was just as culpable as Prema, who had also assaulted the victim in the same incident.<\/p>\n Prema was given two years\u2019 jail on this charge, which took into account a sentencing discount for her guilty plea.<\/p>\n Justice See Kee Oon agreed that the original one-year term for this charge was manifestly inadequate, and increased it to 2\u00bd years.<\/p>\n Chelvam had also appealed against his conviction and sentence.<\/p>\n But See said he was not persuaded that there was merit in the appeal against conviction, and did not think the sentences were manifestly excessive.<\/p>\n The judge allowed Chelvam to start his sentence on Aug 7, after defence counsel Ramesh Tiwary said his client would like to spend some time with his daughter.<\/p>\n Chelvam has been suspended from the Singapore Police Force since August 2016. He and Gaiyathiri divorced in 2020.<\/p>\n The victim started working for\u00a0the family on May 28, 2015.<\/p>\n Gaiyathiri started physically abusing the victim a few months after she started work. From May 2016, Prema joined in the abuse.<\/p>\n CCTV cameras installed in the Bishan flat recorded 35 days\u2019 worth of footage, which showed the victim burned with a heated iron, choked, shaken violently, punched, kicked and stomped on.<\/p>\n The victim was beaten almost daily. She was\u00a0deprived of food and rest, and made to shower and relieve herself with the toilet door open.<\/p>\n On the night of July 25, 2016, the helper was assaulted by Gaiyathiri and Prema for being too slow in doing laundry. Early the next morning, Gaiyathiri continued to assault the helper and choke her.<\/p>\n A few hours later, the helper was pronounced dead by a doctor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n SINGAPORE \u2013\u00a0Suspended\u00a0police officer\u00a0Kevin\u00a0Chelvam, the third and final person to be convicted over the fatal abuse of a domestic worker, had his jail sentence raised from…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":73139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/73139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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