A 34-year-old Singapore father was recently found guilty of causing grievous hurt to his children.
In 2018, he inflicted injuries on his two-month-old daughter while trying to stop her from crying.
About three years later, the man pushed his two-year-old son repeatedly, causing internal bleeding in the boy’s skull and a fracture to the bone.
He was also found guilty of lying to the police and had instigated his wife to do the same.
On Tuesday (1 Aug), the court sentenced the individual to 10 years and four weeks in prison as well as 12 strokes of the cane.
Channel NewsAsia (CNA) reported that the 34-year-old pleaded guilty to two counts of voluntarily causing grievous hurt and one charge of lying to the police.
The father committed the offences on his children on two occasions — first in 2018 and then in 2021.
In May 2018, the man tried to stop his daughter from crying by rocking her up and down.
The prosecution noted that he shook her forcefully in a manner similar to a “baby spring”.
As such, the two-month-old girl’s head was reportedly wobbling from the motion. However, he only rocked her faster the louder she cried.
According to CNA, the man’s wife immediately took the child from him after coming out from the shower.
The pair took the child to the hospital the next day after she cried the entire night.
Doctors found bleeding on the surface of her brain, a skull fracture, two fractured ribs, and bleeding in her eyes.
The injuries were consistent with shaken baby syndrome and were found to be non-accidental.
Due to her injuries, the child was hospitalised for 33 days.
Speaking to the police, the father claimed he wasn’t aware of how his daughter had fractured her skull.
He also blamed his older child for causing the skull and rib fractures as he was “very active” and might have jumped on the baby.
Following the incident, the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) placed the two-month-old in foster care in August 2018.
In September 2019, the MSF also placed the offender’s son in foster care soon after he was born.
Source: Street Directory
However, they allowed both children to stay with their parents on the weekends.
The man committed his next offence in September 2021, when his two-year-old son was over for a weekend visit.
On 20 Sep 2021, his wife had taken videos of the toddler crying and walking away from the flat — as though reluctant to go home.
She then sent the videos to her husband, who got angry at the child’s actions.
That evening, when he was alone at home with the boy, he asked his son why he did not want to enter the flat.
When the boy didn’t reply, he shoved his head several times, causing the boy to repeatedly fall sideways.
The father then noticed that his son looked drowsy and asked him to lie down.
Following this, the boy vomited twice and later developed seizures.
When the parents brought the child to the children’s emergency department at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, a CT scan revealed bleeding in the boy’s skull.
Additionally, there was a fracture of the bone.
The boy was then hospitalised for 24 days after undergoing surgery.
After the incident, police arrested the man and sent him to the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) for assessment.
Though he was not found to have any mental illness, the man “lacked insight into his behaviour and actions”.
Furthermore, he had “a poor understanding of a child’s cognitive maturity and emotional needs”, said an IMH report.
As the father had inflicted harm on his “innocent and blameless” children to the extent of fracturing their skulls, the prosecution asked the court to send a clear message against “parents who inflict gratuitous violence against their children”.
The prosecution added that the father not only lied to officers but also instigated his 28-year-old wife to do the same in order to cover up his crimes.
That said, the wife does not face any charges at the moment.
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Featured image by MS News.
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