A 38-year-old woman of Indian descent Singaporewho applied foundation to her domestic worker’s face to cover bruises from the Policewas sentenced on Monday to 10 months and 10 weeks in prison for assaulting maids, a media report said.
Deepakala Chandra Secharan was convicted in January after a trial of three counts of assault involving her maid.
Secharan was sentenced to 10 months and 10 weeks in prison and was also ordered to pay SGD 4,000 to the victim, Eni Agustin, the Straits Times newspaper reported.
Before handing down the verdict on Monday, District Judge Ow Yong Tuck Leong stressed that a clear signal must be sent that cases of abuse of maids will be dealt with firmly.
Agustin, whose nationality and age were not mentioned in the court documents, started working in Secharan’s apartment on December 9, 2019. The abuse began 16 days later when she mixed up some cutlery while placing it in a kitchen drawer. Secharan repeatedly poked and scratched Agustin’s forehead, deputy prosecutors Yang Ziliang and Chong Ee Hsiun said in their statements.
On April 23, 2020, Secharan hit the domestic helper with a wooden clothes hanger until it broke and exploded in a rage the next day when the maid couldn’t find the masking tape.
Besides beating the domestic worker, Secharan also hit her several times with a stick. The crimes came to light when police officers arrived at the convict’s home following a warning from another maid, the report said.
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On April 25, 2020, a maid in a lower ward called the Center for Domestic Workers after seeing Agustin’s bruises when the latter hung laundry from a kitchen window. Police were alerted and officers arrived at Secharan’s flat later that day.
The convict applied a thick layer of foundation to the victim’s face to hide the bruises and instructed her to lie to the police about the cause of the injuries.
“The defendant (now convicted) then brought an ice pack to the victim and instructed the victim to lie to police about the origin of the injuries,” the report quoted prosecutors as saying.
According to the report, for each charge of abuse by a maid, an offender could face up to four years in prison and a fine of up to SGD 10,000.
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