SINGAPORE, May 9 — A 29-year-old man was sentenced to nine years’ jail and 12 strokes of the cane today for physically abusing his four-year-old stepdaughter, who died from her injuries after he kicked her in the abdomen.
Earlier in March, Muhammad Salihin Ismail was acquitted of murder following a trial.
This was after High Court judge Pang Khang Chau found that Salihin did not satisfy all the elements of the capital offence because he did not intentionally kick the girl in the abdomen.
Instead, the judge convicted Sailihin of a less serious charge of voluntarily causing grievous hurt to Nursabrina Agustiani Abdullah on September 1, 2018. Those convicted can be jailed for up to 10 years as well as fined or caned.
Salihin would have faced the death penalty or life imprisonment with caning if found guilty of murder.
The fatal incident happened in the family’s rental flat along Bukit Batok West Avenue 9. Salihin pushed the victim in anger and she fell to the floor, before he kicked her twice in the abdomen “very forcefully” on two separate occasions that day.
Salihin confessed to the physical acts but disputed inflicting the injury that caused the girl’s death.
He said that he became angry when she missed the toilet bowl when urinating. He and his wife were during that time trying to toilet train the victim in preparation for school.
The girl died the next day from blunt force trauma to the abdomen.
Scalded her with hot water, slammed head on floor
Today, Salihin consented to two remaining charges, which were stood down during the trial, to be taken into consideration for sentencing.
These were for voluntarily causing hurt to Nursabrina by means of a heated substance and ill-treating her in the months leading up to the fatal incident.
In one incident in 2017, Salihin placed a shower head with hot water flowing out of it on the girl’s back for about five to six seconds, causing redness and scalding.
He also slammed the girl’s head on the floor some time between January and April 2018, causing a bruise on her forehead.
The prosecution, led by Deputy Public Prosecutors Lim Shin Hui and Senthilkumaran Sabapathy, sought 10 years’ jail and 12 strokes of the cane. Salihin’s team of lawyers led by Suang Wijaya asked for seven-and-a-half years’ jail and the same number of cane strokes.
In sentencing, Justice Pang noted that some aggravating factors were the manner of Salihin’s attack, his prior criminal history and the victim’s vulnerability.
The prosecution had also argued that one aggravating factor should be Salihin’s delay in seeking medical attention for Nursabrina.
However, Justice Pang said that it was not relevant in determining Salihin’s culpability, which concerns the manner in which an offence is committed and not what happened after.
There was also insufficient evidence that Salihin had deliberately delayed getting medical help for the girl, the judge said. There were no visible external injuries, and Nursabrina’s abdominal discomfort and vomiting “may not have sufficiently alerted the accused that she sustained significant injuries”.
As for mitigating factors, Justice Pang accepted the defence’s submissions that Salihin had shown remorse and cooperated with the authorities.
His sentence was backdated to September 3, 2018 when he was arrested.
What happened
Salihin married the girl’s mother Syabilla Syamien Riyadi in August 2016 when Nursabrina was two years old. Syabilla, a Singapore permanent resident who gave birth to the girl when she was 17, also testified during the trial.
The prosecution accused Salihin of striking Nursabrina in the abdomen a few times with his fist that fateful morning.
However, Justice Pang accepted Salihin’s testimony that he did not punch Nursabrina but “used his knuckles as an obstacle” to prevent the girl from getting off the toilet seat.
Later that afternoon, when Nursabrina said that she wanted to go to the toilet, Salihin asked her to go on her own but she urinated on the floor again.
He then pushed her and kicked her twice while she was on the ground, then placed her on the toilet bowl again and hit her torso a few more times.
Later that evening during dinner, Nursabrina vomited after complaining that her stomach hurt.
Salihin and his wife applied ointment to her abdomen but she continued vomiting from 1am to 8am. He then took the girl to the toilet and used his index finger to induce her to vomit as she had trouble doing so.
After vomiting again, she fell unconscious and could not be resuscitated. Salihin carried her out of the toilet and told his wife to call for an ambulance.
Two paramedics who arrived at the scene testified that they found Nursabrina in the flat, not breathing and without a pulse. She was pronounced dead in Ng Teng Fong General Hospital at about 10am. — TODAY
