SINGAPORE: A woman who used a knife to stab her 15-year-old daughter in the thigh over the teenager’s supposed sexual conduct was sentenced to 14 months’ jail on Wednesday (Jan 4).
The woman, who cannot be named to protect the victim’s identity, had previously pleaded guilty to one count of voluntarily causing hurt by an instrument likely to cause death.
The court heard that the woman was drinking alcohol at home on the night of Jun 19 last year.
Her two daughters, aged 15 and 20 at the time, were in the flat along with their baby brother and maid.
In the wee hours of Jun 20, 2022, the younger daughter was preparing to go to bed when her mother entered her room and began scolding her.
The mother called her older daughter in and asked her if she could kill the younger daughter. Fearing that her mother would turn her anger on her, the older daughter hesitated to intervene.
The mother retrieved a knife from the kitchen and again asked if she should kill the younger daughter.
She then stabbed the 15-year-old girl in her right thigh, causing her to bleed. The girl also received a cut on her arm as she tried to stop her mother.
She tied a shirt around her thigh to stop the bleeding, and her mother told her to clean up the blood on the floor.
The victim feared what else her mother might do to her and hobbled to her older sister’s room for safety while bleeding from her injury.
When the mother saw that the blood had not been cleaned up, she began shouting at the victim to come back and clean it up.
She blamed the girl for the mess, and the victim began cleaning up the area, leaving trails of blood as she hobbled about. Her older sister helped her clean the mess.
Meanwhile, their mother continued to shout and curse at the victim while wielding a metal ladle and threatening to cut her.
Despite the girl’s cries and apologies, the woman hit her with the ladle until it bent out of shape.
POLICE CAME AND LEFT
The police arrived soon after following a complaint of noise at the unit.
The woman told her daughter to stay inside the toilet and out of sight to not raise any suspicion. She denied that there was any dispute.
The older daughter told the police that everything was alright – she felt what happened to her sister was not particularly serious as her mother often beat them.
The police left after a while, and the mother resumed shouting and attacking the victim. This time, she used a small electric fan and the victim’s floorball sticks to hit her.
The fan broke from the strikes, and the mother told her older daughter to attend to her sister’s wounds. But the bleeding could not be stopped.
The mother finally called the police at 3.22am and the victim was taken to hospital for treatment.
The victim underwent surgery and was in significant pain during the first day or two of her admission to hospital. She required pain medication, assistance and surgical wound management to progressively resume her normal activities.
She was transferred to St Andrew’s Community Hospital as a temporary residence of safety and was later placed under the care of her aunt.
The mother admitted stabbing her daughter in the thigh. She said in court documents that she was upset with the girl for going out so frequently and decided to stab her so she would not be able to go out.
JUDGE SPEAKS TO ACCUSED
However, in court, she told the judge she stabbed her daughter after finding out about her daughter’s purported sexual conduct with others.
On Wednesday, District Judge Eugene Teo addressed the accused directly: “You have a relationship with your daughters which needs healing. You have a relationship with alcohol that needs to be corrected, and it is good that you have come to court with people who care about your future. You should concentrate on this part while you are serving your sentence.”
The woman said she felt nauseous and squatted down briefly while the judge spoke.
He told her that he took into account the fact that she was taking responsibility for her actions and was a first offender, but said it was nonetheless a serious offence.
“Please use this period as a period of healing, so that you come out a better person,” he said.