SINGAPORE, July 28 — A 62-year-old woman who made three foreign domestic workers slap one another on the face, as well as pour water over one another until they were drenched, was sentenced to five weeks’ jail and a S$1,500 (RM4,626) fine today.

Kan Choi Yit ordered them to do so as punishment for what she perceived as poor work done. They ended up going to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) Service Centre in Bendemeer to make a report on what she did.

Kan had pleaded guilty in March to two charges of instigating the helpers to voluntarily cause hurt to each other, and another charge of instigating them to intentionally use force to annoy each other.

Today, District Judge John Ng disagreed with Kan’s lawyer Justin Chan’s argument that no physical harm was caused to the workers.

Deterrence is the key sentencing principle when it comes to abuse of domestic workers, and the case was not one with highly mitigating circumstances where a heavy fine would be appropriate, the judge added.

Even then, he considered her plea of guilt, lack of past offences, voluntary compensation to the victims and "advanced age” in passing sentence.

The maximum penalty for causing hurt is up to two years’ jail and a fine of up to S$5,000. Employers of foreign domestic workers, or individuals living in the employers’ household who commit the same offence, are liable to one-and-a-half times the punishment — that is, up to three years’ jail and a fine of up to S$7,500.

The case

The court heard that the foreign domestic workers involved were two women directly employed by Kan: Filipino Annabel Timbol Reyes, now aged 26, and Indonesian Ratna Lestari, now aged 25.

A third woman, Ms Planta Renalyn Manaday, now 32, a Filipino, was employed by Kan’s daughter-in-law. She spent Sundays to Fridays at Kan’s house with her employer.

The first incident happened on Aug 20, 2018.

Ms Reyes was preparing food for Kan’s grandchildren that day. Instead of using a measuring cup to measure a suitable amount of rice to be cooked, Ms Reyes poured the rice grains directly into the rice cooker.

Kan inspected the rice and concluded that there was far more rice than required, then questioned both Ms Reyes and Ms Ratna about it.

Ms Ratna admitted to her employer that she had not taught her colleague to use the measuring cup.

Angered that this lapse resulted in rice going to waste, Kan ordered Ms Reyes to slap Ms Ratna on the face 10 times. The helper did so because she was afraid of disobeying Kan, the court heard.

In a second incident, also around August that year, Ms Manaday and Ms Ratna were both washing the family car at Kan’s home.

The gate was open and the family dog ran out of the house. Ms Manaday alerted Ms Ratna to the runaway pooch by shouting at her.

Kan heard the commotion, came out to investigate and scolded the pair for washing the car late. She then instructed Ms Manaday to slap Ms Ratna twice on the face.

The third incident was in September. The court heard that Kan wanted to drink hot water, but discovered that none was available because none of the flasks had been refilled. This made her angry.

She reprimanded all three helpers and asked what they thought would be an appropriate punishment.

When they did not reply, she instructed them to pour room-temperature water over one another.

The women complied, taking turns to fill up a cooking pot before pouring it over one another.

Kan’s offences came to light on Oct 1, 2018 in the course of an investigation by an MOM officer over a separate incident. Details of that incident were not stated.

Before her sentencing on Tuesday, Kan made voluntary compensation to the three workers through her lawyer.

For all three victims, the compensation made was primarily to account for the loss of earnings.

Ms Manaday received S$645, Ms Reyes got S$600 and Ms Ratna was given S$2,731.

For Ms Ratna, who was the victim of the two slapping charges, S$1,000 in compensation was made for pain and suffering. — TODAY