Belgian expat jailed five years for killing son

SINGAPORE — Belgian expatriate Philippe Graffart was jailed five years on Monday (Aug 22) for smothering his five-year-old son to death, after a High Court judge ruled that as a parent, he should have protected the child instead of ending his life.

Judicial Commissioner Hoo Sheau Peng said: “This is a tragic case in which a five-year-old child’s life has been ended by his father in the midst of a custody fight with his mother, causing immeasurable pain and suffering to all those left behind.”

She also cited the “serious and grave” nature of his offences, which were committed against a young and vulnerable child.

Mr Graffart had admitted to suffocating little Keryan in bed with a cushion between 9pm and 10.17pm on Oct 5 last year. The incident took place in their apartment at D’Leedon condominium.

At that time, Mr Graffart, 42, had major depressive disorder, and was fighting for custody of his son while undergoing acrimonious divorce proceedings. On the day that he killed Keryan, he had received court papers from his wife’s lawyers pertaining to care and custody proceedings for his son. He was also due in court the following day, because his wife had taken a Personal Protection Order against him.

That night, Mr Graffart, using his mobile phone, researched on ways to kill a person. Shortly after that, he took his son to the bedroom to turn in for the night, and read two bedtime stories to him.

After Keryan fell asleep, Mr Graffart wrote a suicide letter to his wife. He returned to the bedroom and placed a cushion over his son’s head, until the boy stopped moving. 

Crying, he kissed his motionless son and said he “was going to join him”.

Mr Graffart tried to kill himself by crashing his car into the tunnel of the Marina Coastal Expressway, and was sent to the hospital. Later, he left the hospital — with a hospital tag and an intravenous drip needle attached — and eventually made his way to a police station, where he confessed that he had done “something really bad” to his son.

He was initially charged with murder, but his charge was amended to culpable homicide not amounting to murder. He was offered the reduced charge if he pleaded guilty instead of claiming trial. The prosecution argued that there was no justification for killing Keryan, who was “caught in the cross-fire of a litigious custody battle” through no fault of his own.

Calling for a jail term of five to six years, Deputy Public Prosecutor Sharmila Sripathy-Shanaz sald: “Keryan was barely five years old when his life was prematurely extinguished by his father… though labouring under a psychiatric condition at that time, it was clear that his actions were motivated by his selfishness.”

His psychiatric condition could not be invoked as a “blanket excuse”, she added. “The cold hard truth is that his actions resulted directly in the loss of a life.”

Pleading for a lighter sentence of four years, defence lawyer Ramesh Tiwary said that Mr Graffart had been driven by the delusion that he would be with his son in death then. “To say that my client regrets what happened is an understatement. A day doesn’t pass in his life since he committed this offence where he does not think of his son and regret the foolish action that he did that day,” Mr Tiwary said. “If he could see his son once more, there is no price my client wouldn’t pay to turn back the clock.”

He added that Mr Graffart saw four doctors over the course of divorce proceedings because he felt unwell. His client told the doctors about his marital woes, and said that he had lost interest in life, had trouble sleeping, and vomited daily, to the point that he lost 10kg. Even then, the doctors merely prescribed him sleeping pills for his condition.

It was only after Mr Graffart was arrested that an Institute of Mental Health psychiatrist diagnosed him with major depressive disorder, qualifying him for the defence of diminished responsibility.

In a handwritten letter tendered to the court, Mr Graffart wrote: “There (are) no words to say how sorry and broken I am by this tragedy… My depression gave me no choice. It convinced me that death was better than life… I am not a killer and will never be. My depression killed my son and almost killed me. I am so sorry.”