Public Prosecutor v Haslinda Binte Ismail

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Toh Yung Cheong
• Judgment Date: 08 March 2021
• Neutral Citation: [2021] SGDC 45
• Court: District Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: DAC 900781 of 2020 and others, Magistrate’s Appeal No 9037-2021-01
• Year: 2021
• Published date: 19 March 2021
• Hearing Date: 03 February 2021,07 January 2021,01 March 2021
• Plaintiff Counsel: Ang Feng Qian, Li Yihong, Grace Chua & Ng Jun Chong (Deputy Public Prosecutor)
• Defendant Counsel: Koo Man Ling Audrey (Populus Law Corporation)
• Citation: [2021] SGDC 45

District Judge Toh Yung Cheong: Introduction

The accused pleaded guilty to three charges relating to the abuse of a 30-year old female victim with a mild intellectual disability. The offences took place in a flat in Woodlands Drive (“the Woodlands flat”) where the accused was staying at the material time. The accused’s cruel actions were tragically part of a wider pattern of abuse which was only revealed after the victim was rushed to the hospital in a critical condition on 16 January 2018.

As the accused has appealed against her sentence of eight-and-a-half years’ imprisonment, I will set out the reasons for my decision.

For ease of reference, the three proceeded charges are summarised in the following table:

Charge number and offence code	Description
DAC 900785/2020 s.324 Penal Code (Cap 224)	Between 8 to 25 June 2017, did cause hurt to the victim by using a hammer to hammer the victim’s teeth twice, causing her to lose her two upper teeth.
DAC 900786/2020 s.324 Penal Code (Cap 224)	Sometime in June 2017, did cause hurt to the victim by splashing hot water on her lower body and causing burns.
DAC 900791/2020 s.326 r/w s.34 Penal Code (Cap 224)	Between September to October 2017, together with one Hasmah Binti Sulong, did cause grievous hurt to the victim by using pliers to twist her second cause and causing a fracture.

In addition, the accused consented to 14 charges being taken into consideration for the purpose of sentencing.

Prescribed Sentence

The prescribed sentences for the offences are:

Offence	Prescribed Maximum
Section 324 Penal Code	7 years’ imprisonment, or fine, or caning, or any combination of such punishments
Section 326 Penal Code	Imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 15 years1, and shall also be liable to fine or to caning

Facts Other family members

The accused stayed in the Woodlands flat with a number of other family members. Reference will be made to the following family members in the facts that follow: Hany Aboubakr Abdelkarim Abdelfattah: The accused’s husband. Hasmah Binte Sulong: The accused’s mother. Hasniza Binte Ismail: The accused’s elder sister. Muhammad Iskandar Bin Ismail: The accused’s second brother. Muhammad Iski Bin Ismail: The accused’s third brother.

The Victim

The victim was a 30-year old female who was a secondary school friend of the victim’s youngest brother Muhammad Isafi Bin Ismail. It was through this connection that the victim became acquainted with the accused and the rest of her family. The victim would visit Isafi and his family at the Woodlands flat and would periodically stay there due to her family problems.

Sometime in early 2016, the victim ran away from home “for good”² and moved into the Woodlands flat. At that point, the victim was working at a McDonalds restaurant and there was an arrangement for the victim to pay the accused’s mother Hasmah $150 a month for laundry and the victim would sleep on a mat in the living room.

After moving into the flat, the accused demanded that the victim hand over her ATM card, passport, and NRIC to her. The accused’s sister Hasniza also discussed with the accused about making the victim their slave.³

The Beginning of the abuse

Sometime between May and June 2016, the accused confronted the victim and accused her of performing fellatio on Hany, the accused’s husband. Various members of the accused’s family including Hany were present. The accused scolded the victim and slapped her once on the face and instigated Hany to slap the victim as well. From then on, members of the accused’s family repeatedly perpetrated acts of abuse against the victim.

Apart from the incidents that give rise to the three proceeded charges, the Statement of Facts also describes other acts of abuse against the victim. In this part of the judgment, I will outline the facts in relation to the proceeded charges.

DAC 900785/2020: Hammering of the victim’s teeth – s.324 Penal Code

Sometime between 8 June 2017 and 25 June 2017, during the fasting period before Hari Raya Puasa, the victim was in the living room of the flat together with the accused and Hasmah. Hasmah started complaining to the accused that the victim was very dirty and messy and instructed the accused to knock out the victim’s teeth with a hammer.

Upon hearing this, the accused commanded the victim to wait for her in the bathroom adjoining the kitchen at the flat. The victim was frightened and did as she was told. Shortly after, the accused entered the bathroom with a hammer the length of an A4 paper (around 30 cm in length), with a wooden handle and a steel head. She instructed the victim to sit on the toilet seat and to open her mouth. The accused then forcefully hit the victim’s two upper front teeth with the hammer twice. As a result of the accused’s forceful hits to the victim’s teeth, the whole of the victim’s front left upper tooth became dislodged and fell out immediately. In addition, the victim’s front right upper tooth was also chipped. The ordeal was extremely painful for the victim but she did not scream or cry for help as she knew it would be futile.⁴ Subsequently, more of her right upper tooth chipped off while she was eating.

Facts relating to the three proceeded charges DAC 900786/2020: Splashing hot water

Sometime in June 2017, after the events of DAC-900785-2020, the accused saw the victim in the kitchen of the flat. She got angry with the victim’s presence, reached for a white electric kettle containing hot water and splashed the hot water from the kettle on the victim. At the time, the victim was standing in front of the accused and the hot water scalded her front lower body and both her thighs. The scalding from the hot water was painful and caused blistering burns to the victim. However, the victim did not dare to cry out for help or tell anyone that she was scalded by the accused as she was fearful that the accused would scald her with hot water again.

Later that day, as her burn wounds were left unattended, the victim’s trousers started sticking onto her wounds. Hasmah and Hasniza noticed her fidgeting with her trousers and discovered the burn injuries. Hasniza then bought a cream and applied it onto the victim’s scald wounds.⁵

DAC 900791/2020: Twisting and fracturing the second left toe with pliers

Sometime between September and October 2017, the victim was with Hasmah, the accused, and Iskandar’s wife, Arniyati, in the living room of the Block 714 Unit when the accused got angry with the victim again. The accused demanded that the victim sit on the floor of the living room and went to the kitchen to retrieve a pair of pliers from a toolbox stored in the cabinet under the kitchen sink.

In the living room, the accused sat in front of the victim. She clipped and tried to twist the victim’s second left toe with the plier. However, the victim quickly shifted her left foot. Frustrated, the accused shouted at Hasmah to help her twist the victim’s toes with pliers.

Hasmah positioned herself to the right of the victim while the accused was on the victim’s left. In furtherance of their common intention to cause grievous hurt to the victim, Hasmah and the accused, each armed with a pair of pliers, clipped and twisted the victim’s toes. The accused clipped and twisted the victim’s second left toe, while Hasmah clipped and twisted her second and third right toes.

The accused twisted the victim’s second left toe very forcefully and the victim felt her second left toe breaking when the accused was twisting it. The pain was excruciating and the victim screamed out in pain. Her second left toe was fractured as a result and it bled profusely. Throughout the entire incident, Arniyati was present and saw Hasmah and the accused’s joint abuse on the victim.

After the assault, the accused went to purchase medication for the victim. However, the medication had no effect on the victim’s fractured second left toe. The accused and Hasniza then took turns to bandage the victim’s injured second left toe with a sanitary pad, so as to prevent the blood from her toe from smearing onto the floor of the flat.

As a result of this incident and following the lack of proper medical attention, the victim sustained a left second toe deformity. ⁶

Prosecution’s Submissions

The prosecution’s sentencing submission dealt with: The applicable sentencing principles. The general aggravating factors Applying the Ng Soon Kim sentencing approach to each of the individual charges in order to arrive at indicative sentences for each charge, while at the same time bearing in mind the sentences imposed in previous cases.

Based on these considerations, the prosecution submitted that the accused should be sentenced to at least 36 months’ imprisonment for the charge involving the use of a hammer, at least 30 months’ imprisonment for the charge involving hot water, and at least 48 months’ imprisonment for the charge involving the use of pliers. In addition, the prosecution submitted that all 3 sentences should run consecutively for a total sentence of nine and a half years’ imprisonment.

My Decision

For ease of reference, my decision is divided into the following parts: General aggravating factors that apply to all charges. Applicable sentencing principles. Defence mitigation plea. Adopting the approach in Ng Soon Kim to arrive at indicative sentence for each offence. Sentences to run consecutively and the totality principle.

General Aggravating Factors

I agreed with the prosecution’s submission that the following general aggravating factors were present in this case: Vulnerable victim. Abuse of trust and authority Pattern of abuse Psychological harm caused to the victim Deliberate concealment of the offences

Vulnerable victim

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