SINGAPORE, Dec 6 — A 35-year-old man held his nine-year-old son upside down, hit him with a hanger several times, and forcefully kicked him — all because of some mistakes the boy made in his homework.
Today, the Singaporean father, who cannot be named to protect the child’s identity, was jailed for four months on one charge under the Children and Young Persons Act. He had pleaded guilty in June to ill-treating the boy.
He will begin serving his sentence on February 11, 2019, after Chinese New Year, and is out on S$15,000 (RM45,572.71) bail. The man and his wife are currently undergoing divorce proceedings.
District Judge Eddy Tham said that the man’s frustrations with his child did not excuse his actions, and that a message had to be sent to deter others from committing such crimes.
“The acts of violence were relentless and extreme in this case…. He continued (beating the boy) despite the child’s pleas,” added the judge.
“This case shows why this court comes down hard on parents who are violent with their children. The child was vulnerable and totally at (the man’s) mercy.”
Deputy public prosecutor Jotham Tay, who sought four months’ imprisonment for the man, said it was clear that the beating “was not done in a controlled manner for the purposes of discipline, but out of rage”.
The man’s lawyer, T U Naidu, told the court that the relationship between father and son has “greatly improved”, and that the man is attending counselling sessions. “Any form of custodial sentence will affect what has been built up so far,” he argued.
What happened
The incident took place on the evening of August 4 last year, after the boy’s mother left their home to meet her friends for dinner. The boy was doing his homework in the dining room, while his father watched television in the living room.
Footage of the incident was captured on the closed-circuit television (CCTV) mounted on a ledge in the dining room.
When the boy ran into difficulties with his homework, he asked his father for help, but the man told him to think of the answers on his own.
However, he flared up when the boy gave several wrong answers, and went into the bedroom to get a plastic hanger.
The boy begged for leniency, to no avail.
The man grabbed his son’s hand and forcefully yanked him from the chair, causing him to fall. He then grabbed the boy’s leg and held him up in the air as he hit him with the hanger several times on his buttocks and legs.
A video of the incident was played in court in June, showing the father raising the hanger before swinging it down with his full strength to hit his son each time.
He stopped after 30 seconds, but continued shouting at the boy, who told his father that he really did not know the answers. The man kicked the boy twice forcefully, shouting: “You know why you don’t know, you’re stupid!”
He then flung the hanger at his son twice, kicked him once more and chased him into the bedroom, where he hit the boy’s buttocks multiple times with his hand.
During the assault, a neighbour called the police to say that he heard a child crying, and that the father was thrashing the boy.
When the boy’s mother returned home at about 1.15am, she learnt about the incident from her son and watched the CCTV footage.
She admitted him to the KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital that night to treat the multiple bruises he suffered. The boy was discharged from the hospital three days later.
For ill-treating his son, the father could have been jailed up to four years and/or fined up to S$4,000. — TODAY
