SINGAPORE, April 29 — A 40-year-old woman, who pleaded guilty earlier this year to viciously abusing her domestic worker almost daily over nine months till she died in 2016, is seeking a further reduction of her charge to escape a potential life imprisonment sentence.
Gaiyathiri Murugaiyan will also be asking the court to impose a gag order prohibiting further reporting on the case, her new lawyer Joseph Chen said today.
Gaiyathiri admitted in February to fatally abusing 24-year-old Myanmarese Piang Ngaih Don.
Chen — who took over Gaiyathiri’s previous lawyers, Sunil Sudheesan and Diana Ngiam, last month — said that his client would not be retracting her guilty plea but is seeking to reduce her culpable homicide charge, currently under Section 304(a) of the Penal Code, to one under Section 304(b).
The latter carries a maximum jail term of 10 years, while the former can attract life imprisonment or up to 20 years’ jail, according to the Penal Code provisions that were in force at the time of her offences.
If the prosecution rejects this, Chen said he will tender a further mitigation plea in a bid to lower her sentence.
He added that it will focus on “stressors that resulted in her feeling an increased tension due to her worry about her children’s health”, which would reduce the mother of two’s culpability for the acts.
Sudheesan and Ngiam had raised this in their earlier mitigation plea, saying that Gaiyathiri struggled with having unrelenting standards for cleanliness and competence at home.
Her son and daughter then fell ill with gastrointestinal issues which she attributed to Piang’s alleged poor hygiene such as not washing her hands before touching cooking materials, the lawyers added.
As for the gag order, Chen told TODAY that Gaiyathiri wanted to apply for one due to media publicity adversely affecting her children.
Deputy Chief Prosecutor Mohamed Faizal Mohamed Abdul Kadir said that they will respond to Chen’s new arguments once he files once he files his further mitigation by May 28.
Justice See Kee Oon told the prosecution to reply by June 14, and tentatively scheduled a next court mention for June 22.
Gaiyathiri remains in remand in the meantime.
The case
The court heard earlier that Gaiyathiri was constantly angry with the maid for perceived unhygienic practices and slowness, physically and verbally abusing the younger woman and depriving her of food and water.
Piang lost 15kg and weighed just 24kg when she died in the family’s three-bedroom flat at Bishan Street 11 on July 26 in 2016.
An autopsy uncovered 31 recent scars and 47 external injuries scattered all over Piang’s body. Her hyoid bone — a U-shaped bone in the neck that supports the tongue — was also fractured, most likely from Gaiyathiri holding her by the neck and shaking her like a rag doll, a forensic pathologist found.
Prosecutors previously argued that the case was “especially heinous and especially horrific” enough to warrant life imprisonment.
Gaiyathiri was originally charged with murder which carries the possibility of the death penalty, but the prosecution reduced it to culpable homicide on account of her mental condition.
After her arrest, she was diagnosed with major depressive disorder and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, which a psychiatrist found had substantially contributed to her committing the offences.
Her then-lawyers also said that she suffered from postpartum depression that set in around February 2015.
Gaiyathiri, who was unemployed at the time, pleaded guilty to 28 charges in February.
These included culpable homicide not amounting to murder, wrongful restraint and causing hurt or grievous hurt to Piang.
The prosecution then played several clips from the closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras Gaiyathiri installed at various parts of her flat to monitor Piang and her own two young children.
The clips showed several instances of the abuse including Gaiyathiri dragging Piang by the hair.
She had grown unhappy with Piang early on in her employment, establishing a strict set of rules involving hygiene and order in the three-bedroom flat and expecting Piang to adhere to them.
Gaiyathiri began abusing her verbally by shouting at her but this escalated to physical abuse from October 2015 onwards.
Gaiyathiri would assault her almost every day, either alone or with her mother Prema S Naraynasamy, and often several times a day.
However, the CCTV cameras installed only kept footage for 35 days, overwriting the earlier ones automatically.
This meant that investigators could only rely on footage from June 21 to July 26, 2016.
During this time, Piang was provided with very little food. Her meals often comprised sliced bread soaked in water, cold food straight from the refrigerator or some rice at night.
She also had no privacy, being forced to shower or relieve herself with the toilet door open while Gaiyathiri and Prema watched.
She wore many layers of face masks as she went about her work in the house because Gaiyathiri seemingly found her unhygienic and did not want to look at her face.
For 12 consecutive nights from July 15, Gaiyathiri tied Piang’s hands to the window grille using a string, leaving Piang to sleep on the bedroom floor.
Piang begged to be released but Gaiyathiri told her she deserved to be tied up since she had snuck out at night to get food.
The last time Piang got medical help was on May 23 at Bishan Grace Clinic. Gaiyathiri accompanied her there, where the doctor noticed that she had bruises around both eye sockets, both cheeks and a burn on her arm.
Gaiyathiri told the doctor that Piang frequently fell down and had accidentally burned herself while ironing. The truth was that Gaiyathiri had pressed a heated steam iron to Piang’s arm a few days earlier.
Between 11.40pm on July 25 and about 5am the next day, CCTV footage captured Gaiyathiri repeatedly assaulting Piang. She was angry that the worker was too slow in doing the laundry.
Gaiyathiri struck Piang on her neck with a clenched fist, pulled her hair and hit her head with a detergent bottle. Piang was so weak at this point that she could barely get up from the toilet floor.
Prema soon joined her daughter, pouring a basin of water on Piang and choking her by the neck, among other acts.
Gaiyathiri tied her to the window grille again and kicked her some more, before trying to wake her up around 5am. She assaulted Piang some more but grew concerned when she remained motionless.
Gaiyathiri and Prema tried to revive her but were unsuccessful.
Gaiyathiri’s husband, suspended police staff sergeant Kevin Chelvam, 42, and Prema, 61, also face multiple charges related to the abuse. Their cases are before the courts.
Chelvam had allegedly removed the CCTV digital video recorder system installed in the flat and purportedly lied to investigators that their tenants had requested this six months earlier. — TODAY
