The court has sentenced a former auxiliary police officer to jail for abusing his 11-year-old stepdaughter.
The girl died of head injuries from his abuse.
Additionally, the girl’s mother also received a jail sentence for not intervening when the abuse occurred.
The court on 15 Feb also lifted the gag order on the couple’s identities.
This was despite the defence’s arguments that making the couple’s names public could be detrimental to their other children.
The court sentenced the stepfather, 29-year-old Mohamad Fazli Selamat, to 15 years and 11 months in jail and 12 strokes of the cane.
Source: Singapore Prison Service on Facebook
His charges are:
He had also hit the 11-year-old girl on her head with an exercise bar while she was eating.
On the other hand, the mother, 30-year-old Roslinda Jamil got seven years, eight months and three weeks of jail time for allowing the abuse.
This is the first time Singapore has prosecuted someone based on this charge, CNA reported.
High Court judge Pang Khang Chau also granted the prosecution’s request to make public the couple’s names on 15 Feb.
Initially, there was a gag order to protect the identities of the couple’s other children in case they had to testify as witnesses.
The Children and Young Persons Act disallows the publication of identifying information of witnesses below 18 years old in court proceedings.
However, the prosecution argued that this no longer applies as the case has concluded.
Previously, it was reported that the pair started dating in May 2019 and moved in together in October of the same year, before getting married in April 2020.
From February 2020, Mohamad Fazli Selamat would instruct his stepdaughter, Roslinda Jamil’s daughter, to stand on a table and hold a 1.5-litre bottle at shoulder level.
If she lowered the bottle, he would cane her arms.
He would also repeatedly cane her buttocks, thighs, and arms, and assault her with a belt before resuming the caning, among other punishments.
The abuse was because he believed that the victim was stealing, or that she was eating too slowly, and could last up to 30 minutes with her mother present.
Family members subsequently noticed the victim’s bruises and scolded him for abusing the girl. They threatened to report him to the police and reprimanded her mother for not stepping in.
The couple pleaded guilty on 27 Feb 2023 in relation to the child’s abuse and death.
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