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Mother pleads guilty to ill-treating toddler who suffered skull fracture, serious brain injuries

SINGAPORE — Frustrated with her two-year-old son’s slower development, she would frequently flare up and hit him.

SINGAPORE — Frustrated with her two-year-old son’s slower development, she would frequently flare up and hit him.

The 27-year-old woman struck him so hard one day that he hit his head against the leg of a table, fracturing his skull and sustaining serious brain injuries.

On Friday (May 10), the mother, who cannot be named to protect her child’s identity, pleaded guilty to three charges of causing grievous hurt and ill-treating him. Four other similar charges will be considered for sentencing on May 21.

The court heard that she has three children and lives separately from their fathers. On March 25 last year, she was giving her three children a bath in their apartment. The victim was 23 months old then, and her two other sons were four years old and one month old.

As she was bathing the other children, she smelt faeces and saw the boy digging into his diaper and playing with it.

Angered by his actions as she wanted to end bath time quickly, she slapped him hard on his right cheek. When the boy persisted in playing with his faeces, she slapped him on the other cheek.

“The force of the accused’s slap was so great that the victim’s body turned midway and the victim fell sideways, with his head hitting hard against one of the legs of a nearby metal table. The victim cried violently after his head hit against the leg of the metal table,” Deputy Public Prosecutor Grace Chua said.

The mother then tried to calm the boy down to no avail. He continued crying and his body started to shake violently.

She placed him in her lap and tried to massage him with some oil, but he was barely responsive and had grown semi-conscious. She decided to call for help, first calling her friend for advice as she was afraid her children would be taken away from her if the authorities were alerted.

She eventually called for an ambulance 10 to 15 minutes later on her friend’s insistence, but did not follow her son to Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, choosing to stay home with her two other children.

At the hospital, the boy was found to have multiple bruises — inflicted at different times — on his skull and back. He had also suffered a skull fracture and a part of his brain was compressed and injured from the accumulation of blood.

He was later transferred to the children’s intensive care unit of the KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital.

As a result of his severe brain injury, he was found to have spastic-dystonic cerebral palsy and global developmental delay, with the developmental age of a six-month-old. The boy was also assessed to likely require assistance for all his daily living activities and mobility.

He also suffered disabilities such as poor head and body control and severe expression language delay. As of Jan 25, the boy had not fully recovered from his injuries.

Investigations revealed that this was not the first time she had assaulted him. Her relationship with the boy was strained as she found him to be slow in his development. When he was 21 months old, he was found to have mild global development delay due to social deprivation.

On a previous occasion, she punched him more than five times in the chest when he did not listen to her instructions.

Another time, he refused to go to the toilet for his bath. She yanked his arm forcefully while dragging him, resulting in a loud cracking sound.

She did not take him to the doctor to get his injury checked out and massaged his arm instead. The incident left a painful bump and swelling on his arm, which turned out to be a fracture.

For causing grievous hurt, she could be jailed up to 10 years and fined. For ill-treating the boy, she could be jailed up to four years and fined up to S$4,000.

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