SINGAPORE, Nov 30 — “Vindictive”, “cruel”, “vicious” and “heinous”.
These were some of the words the apex court used to describe the physical abuse a woman subjected her toddler son to, starting from he was just two years and five months old, until he died from the blows he sustained on August 1, 2014.
He was four years old.
What killed the boy was a head injury, from impact at six areas. But he had 43 other external injuries, ranging from old scars on his forehead, chin, head, and neck, to abrasions and bruises “all over (his) body”, in the court’s words in its grounds of decision released yesterday.
Five areas of internal bleeding were also found in his tissues.
Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, together with fellow appeal judges Tay Yong Kwang and Steven Chong, had in July upped the woman’s sentence from eight years to 14.5 years on the appeal by prosecutors.
In the judgment explaining the court’s decision released yesterday, he said simply:
“The pain suffered by (the victim) must have been unspeakably severe.”
The woman and her son were not named in the judgment but were previously reported as Noraidah Mohd Yussof and Airyl.
The abuse started sometime in March 2012. When the toddler could not follow Noraidah’s instructions when she was trying to teach him the alphabet, she became irritated and pushed him.
She also stepped on his ribs.
Shortly after, he was given some paper to draw on, but the boy scribbled on the sofa instead, angering his mother.
She “twisted and pulled (his) hand very hard”.
On March 12, she took Airyl to KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, where he was admitted until April 2. He had multiple fractures, on his left elbow, left calf, and eighth to 11th ribs. There was also bruising on his forehead and the back of his head, several small bruises on various parts of his body, and healed scars on his lower legs and lower abdomen.
Noraidah lied that his injuries were due to a fall down a flight of stairs at home and an earlier fall at the playground.
Child Protective Service (CPS) stepped in and the boy was cared for by fosterers for three months, before being placed under his maternal relatives’ charge. His mother moved into the same house four months later but there were no further reports of abuse, so the CPS closed the case on February 5, 2014.
Noraidah and her two children — she has an older daughter — moved to a flat in Eunos after a while, and on July 30, the abuse resumed.
Because Airyl could not recite certain numbers in Malay, she shoved him until he fell backwards and hit the back of his head against a TV console table.
Later that day, she kicked him in the waist area after he soiled the floor.
While he was on the floor, she stood on his stomach with both feet for a few seconds.
Two days later, Noraidah asked her son to recite some numbers again. When he could not do so in Malay, she shouted at him, then ignored him for a while.
After he took a nap, Noraidah made him try again but he failed.
She then pushed him, causing him to fall backwards and hit his head on the floor.
After he failed several times more, she repeated her actions and he hit his head on the floor again.
She then stepped on her son’s knees with both legs repeatedly three or four times.
Later, she choked him and pushed him to the floor, and also lifted him off the ground by the neck, holding him against the wall.
Seeing that he was gasping for air, she let him go and he fell to the ground, laying still, weak and unresponsive.
Airyl was eventually sent to hospital, where doctors found a blood clot between his skull and brain.
After an emergency operation, he remained in a critical condition and was put on life support but developed further complications.
Because of the poor prognosis, his family members took him off life support and the boy died. — TODAY
