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Apex court proposes enhanced punishment for certain offences against vulnerable victims

SINGAPORE — Consider letting judges enhance punishments for certain crimes against vulnerable victims to 1.5 times the maximum penalty prescribed, the highest court of the land urged lawmakers on Wednesday (Nov 29).

SINGAPORE — Consider letting judges enhance punishments for certain crimes against vulnerable victims to 1.5 times the maximum penalty prescribed, the highest court of the land urged lawmakers on Wednesday (Nov 29).

In written grounds of decision explaining why it significantly increased the jail sentence of a mother who abused her child to death, Chief Justice (CJ) Sundaresh Menon said the approach is already taken for certain offences against foreign domestic workers, as they are more vulnerable to abuse by employers.

The same has been done for racially or religiously-aggravated offences. The approach has also been proposed in the draft Vulnerable Adults Bill for certain offences.

“This proposed change is entirely consistent with our call for the courts to be afforded the discretion to enhance sentences for certain offences against vulnerable victims, especially children and young persons,” said CJ Menon.

“In the present case, if there had been such a provision affording us this discretion, we would not have hesitated to enhance (the offender’s) sentence for the first charge (relating to causing grievous hurt) by one and a half times, given the gravity of that offence and the significant aggravating factors present.”

The maximum penalty for causing grievous hurt is 10 years’ jail, caning and a fine. The law does not allow for women to be caned.

Many cases of violence against children and young persons that lead to serious injury or death have resulted in charges being brought not for culpable homicide but for causing grievous hurt or for ill-treatment, CJ Menon noted. Culpable homicide may carry a higher maximum penalty.

The woman and her son were not named in court documents but have been previously reported as Noraidah Mohd Yussof, 35, and Airyl, who was four when he died in Aug 2014.

The apex court had in July upped Noraidah’s sentence to 14.5 years, agreeing with the prosecution that a jail term of at least 12 years was warranted. Noraidah was earlier sentenced to eight years’ jail.

The apex court upped the sentences for Noraidah’s two counts of causing grievous hurt, but did not disturb the sentences for another two counts of ill-treatment under the Children and Young Persons Act.

The increased sentences were according to a sentencing framework for causing grievous hurt the appeal judges set out.

Where the hurt takes the form of death, CJ Menon said the indicative starting point should be a jail term of around eight years, close to the maximum penalty allowed.

Where the hurt takes the form of multiple fractures of the kind Airyl had suffered, the indicative starting point should be around 3.5 years, he said.

They can be adjusted upwards or downwards based on mitigating or aggravating factors.

Aggravating factors include the degree of premeditation, vulnerability of the victim, and any prior intervention by the authorities. Mitigating factors include remorse, and the offender’s mental condition.

The apex court disagreed with the High Court judge’s characterisation of Noraidah’s offences as crimes of passion, calling them acts of vindictiveness. Her actions were deliberate responses to Airyl’s particular actions and there was nothing to suggest she had lost control, CJ Menon said.

Noraidah, who has another child, began abusing Airyl from March 2012, when he was just two years and five months old.

The tragedy was exacerbated by the fact the abuse continued even after the involvement of the Ministry of Social and Family Development’s Child Protective Service, CJ Menon said. Noraidah regained custody of Airyl after no recurrence of abuse was reported, but she subsequently continued ill-treating him.

In the abuses leading to his death, she choked him, lifted him off the ground with his back against the wall before letting go, causing him to crash onto the floor.

He was later taken to a hospital and was found to have multiple head and body injuries. He died after being taken off life support.

When contacted, the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) said Singapore has strengthened legislation, systems and policies to improve protection for children. It is considering if the current penalties for child abuse under the Children and Young Persons Act are sufficient.

MSF has rolled out better screening tools since 2015 to sharpen the capability of health, education and social service professionals in assessing safety concerns. This, together with greater awareness on child protection and family violence, have uncovered more cases with serious child protection concerns that were rightly flagged up to MSF for intervention since 2015.

MSF has also set up more community-based services to support cases with child safety concerns. Since 2013, three community-based Child Protection Specialist Centres (CPSCs) – HEART@Fei Yue (under Fei Yue Community Services), Big Love (under Montfort Care) and SAFE SPACE (operated by PAVE) – were set up to support moderate-risk cases.

It also launched a three-year campaign in November 2016 to get bystanders of family violence to help detect, prevent, safely interrupt and report suspected cases.

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