A father is facing a murder trial for causing the death of his five-year-old daughter in 2017.
The 43-year-old allegedly abused and assaulted the girl since 2015 when she was three.
The man, whose identity is concealed under a gag order to protect the identity of his son, now faces a capital charge for his daughter’s death.
He is accused of 25 other charges relating to the ill-treatment of his children, and other offences after his daughter’s death.
According to The Straits Times (ST), the abuse occurred between December 2015 and August 2017.
Since the girl was three years old, the father would allegedly assault her and confine her, unclothed, in the toilet for hours.
The abuse reportedly continued until she eventually died in 2017.
The father now faces a total of 26 charges, including a capital charge for his daughter’s death.
Source: Manifold Times
10 of the charges were for the ill-treatment of his daughter. These comprised eight charges involving physical abuse, and two more for confining the girl in a corner of a room and in the toilet.
The eight physical abuse charges were on account of the man allegedly punching, slapping and kicking the girl, “lifting her up by her neck against a wall and pointing a pair of scissors at her, and throwing her onto a mattress”, noted ST.
The confinement charges apparently took place with the common intention of his wife, although she has yet to be charged.
Source: Naomi O’Hare on Unsplash, for illustration purposes only
While the order of events is unclear, the murder charge alleges that the man caused his daughter’s death between 9pm on 10 Aug and the early morning of 11 Aug 2017. She was only five-years-old when she passed away.
The charge also did not reveal how she died.
Prosecutors additionally accused the man of abusing his son during the same period. The young boy was aged between two and four years old then.
The father faces nine charges for the ill-treatment of his son, for similar offences.
The remaining six charges the man faces are with regards to offences he committed following the alleged murder.
ST reported that one of the charges was for the disposal of evidence including:
He allegedly also lied in five statements about his daughter’s death from 12 to 17 Aug 2017, when questioned by the police after his arrest.
In one of these statements, he claimed she died after hitting her head on a playground slide.
On Monday (15 May), Deputy Public Prosecutor Han Ming Kuang argued in the High Court for the accused’s toilet confinement charge and six post-murder charges to be jointly tried during the murder trial, which is set to take place in July.
Prosecutor Han justified that the murder charge and confinement charge are overlapping, in terms of the time and location involved. He also noted that the accused likely committed the offences after the murder to protect himself against a possible homicide charge.
In response, the man’s lawyer asserted that the arrangement would be unfair for the man.
A joint-trial of the charges would mean he would have to defend himself against additional charges which hold less severe outcomes than the murder charge.
The case has been adjourned to Friday (19 May).
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