School bus driver jailed for locking 3-year-old in vehicle for more than an hour without ventilation

• Zulkahnai Haron left the girl, restrained by a seat belt, locked in the school bus for more than an hour
• He went to buy food and groceries, but lied to police that he had to change clothes as he had soiled himself
• He returned to the bus only after two passers-by spotted the girl crying and called him

SINGAPORE — Upset that his supervisor was not paying him extra for taking more students to school, a school bus driver locked a three-year-old girl in his vehicle for more than an hour without ventilation. 

He later lied to the police that he did it because he had a stomachache and soiled his pants. 

Instead, he had gone shopping for food and groceries. 

The girl suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result.

Zulkahnai Haron, 47, was on Wednesday (Jan 6) jailed 10 months, fined S$3,000 and banned from driving for a year.

He pleaded guilty to one charge of ill-treating a child by causing unnecessary suffering, a crime under the Children and Young Persons Act, as well as to an unrelated traffic charge.

The Children and Young Persons Act was amended in 2019 to raise the maximum punishment for such forms of ill-treatment and this is the first such prosecution since the revision.

THE CASE

The incident happened on Jan 20 last year, after Zulkahnai drove a group of students to their schools. 

Soon after he dropped off the last student, his supervisor told him to take two other students to their schools. 

When he asked his supervisor if he would receive extra allowance for doing so, he did not get a satisfactory answer. 

After one of the students alighted, he told the bus attendant Loke Sau Keng that she could leave for the day. 

The 72-year-old attendant, whose job was to ensure the safety of the students, did so. This was despite company policy stating that attendants could leave only when all students had alighted. 

Instead of taking the last pupil — a three-year-old girl who cannot be named because of her age — to her school, Zulkahnai drove to his home at Admiralty Drive.

Around 9am, he parked the bus at a multi-storey car park, turned off the engine and locked it, leaving the girl restrained inside by a seat belt.

He went to buy food and groceries before going home. 

An hour later, two passers-by heard cries of “hello, hello” from inside the vehicle. 

Peering in, they saw the girl sobbing and calling for her mother. 

They called Zulkahnai, whose phone number was displayed on the vehicle’s dashboard, and got in touch with the girl's school to report the matter to her principal.

Zulkahnai returned to the car park at about 10.10am and told them: “Not to worry, it’s only for a few minutes.”

He said he would take the girl to school but one of the passers-by, 42-year-old Chor Geok Pei, insisted on tagging along. Ms Chor recounted the incident to the girl’s teacher after arriving at the school. 

LIED TO POLICE

Deputy Public Prosecutors (DPPs) Yang Ziliang and Colin Ng said Zulkahnai had lied when he was hauled up for investigations.

In his first statement to the police, he claimed to have left the girl for half an hour to return home to change clothes because he had a stomachache and soiled his pants.

It was only when he was confronted with surveillance footage of himself at the supermarket that he admitted doing so because he was upset at not receiving extra allowance. 

For about six months after the incident, the girl was scared of being alone and could not fall asleep without her mother by her side. 

The DPPs said: “(Her mother) also reported that the victim (said) that she would not want to take the school bus, as she was afraid that the driver might forget about her and leave her alone again.” 

A doctor at the Institute of Mental Health diagnosed the girl with post-traumatic stress disorder nine months after the ordeal. 

In a separate incident, Zulkahnai beat a red light along Simei Road at about 2pm on April 10 last year. This caused a motorcyclist who had the right of way to brake and fall. 

Zulkahnai made a U-turn to check on the motorcyclist, who was later found to have suffered bruises and tenderness over his body.

EGREGIOUS ABUSE OF TRUST

In sentencing Zulkahnai, District Judge Marvin Bay said that there was an “egregious abuse” of the trust that the girl’s parents had placed in Zulkahnai.

The judge said: “What you have done is not just an act of prolonged ill-treatment but (you) placed a vulnerable child in a potentially dangerous situation, leaving her in the bus without a bus attendant and without any ventilation.” 

The girl had run the risk of oxygen deprivation, heat stress and even injury if she had struggled to free herself from her seat belt.

District Judge Bay added that he would have given Zulkahnai a higher sentence had he parked the bus in the open — raising the risk of heat injury.

Zulkahnai, as a father of two teenagers aged 17 and 18, should have known better, he said.

“We do not know how long you would have left the child in the vehicle, if not for the quick and conscientious intervention of the two passers-by,” said District Judge Bay. 

For ill-treating a child, Zulkahnai could have been jailed up to eight years or fined up to S$8,000, or punished with both.

For dangerous driving, he could have been jailed up to two years or fined up to S$10,000, or given both penalties.