Mentally-ill mother gets five years’ jail for death of son

SINGAPORE — Harbouring thoughts that her seven-year-old autistic son was the reason for her exhaustion and marital problems, a mentally-ill mother pushed him out of the window of their high-rise home in Tampines.

The 43-year-old woman, who cannot be named due to a court gag order, was sentenced to five years’ jail by the High Court on Friday (March 18), after she was convicted of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

The court heard that the boy was diagnosed with autism in 2010, and his mother had been the primary caregiver for her family over several years because her husband travelled often for work. On Sept 13, 2014, the woman, who used to work as an education manager in a cosmetic shop, quarrelled with her husband who was away for much of that month. He later left to take their older son for tuition class.

Alone with her autistic son, the woman placed a stool by the kitchen window of their seventh-floor flat, and asked the boy to stand on it and look down to see if he could spot his grandmother.

Once he was on the stool, she grabbed his calves and pushed him out the window. The boy died from the fall.

When the police arrived, the mother — who appeared to be in a daze and was hugging a pillow — fell to the ground and cried.

A psychiatric report stated that she was diagnosed with major depression in 2008. At the time of the offence, she had a relapse of her condition and was showing its symptoms.

The report also said that the “nature and severity of (the woman’s) depressive symptoms would have substantively impaired her mental responsibility for her actions or omissions around the time of the offence”.

However, Deputy Public Prosecutor Krystle Chiang, while acknowledging that this was a tragic case, urged the court to impose a jail sentence of at least five years, saying there was still “some degree of premeditation” and that the mother was aware at the time “of the nature and quality of her actions”. Pleading for leniency for his client, defence lawyer Anand Nalachandran said the mother blamed herself for her son’s condition and “buckled under the weight” of being a wife and mother.

With her husband mostly abroad, she had to juggle work, housework and childcare alone, not to mention that the two sons fell ill during the school holiday period the month of the incident.

In sentencing, Justice Tay Yong Kwang told the mother that her family is “far from being angry” with her and they “long to be reunited” with her, urging her to recover well and to return home after her jail term to rebuild her family and her life.

The mother’s sentence has been backdated to the day of the incident.