SINGAPORE – A 73-year-old woman who, together with her family, abused an intellectually disabled woman they treated like a slave has been sentenced to 17 years and 10 months’ jail.
Hasmah Sulong had the most serious charges of her family, all of whom have been convicted and sentenced in relation to this case.
The horrific acts that she committed on the victim included knocking her teeth out with a hammer, digging a finger into her eye until it bled, splashing her with hot water, and chaining her to a toilet bowl.
As a result, the victim, now 33, suffered head injuries, burns, permanent blurred vision in her right eye, and the loss of 10 teeth.
On July 2, Hasmah pleaded guilty to five charges relating to the abuse.
The victim was a secondary school friend of one of Hasmah’s sons, Mr Muhammad Isafi Ismail, and grew close to his family over time.
After running away from home in 2016, the victim moved into the family’s flat at Woodlands Drive.
Hasmah and her family saw that the victim was intellectually slow, and discussed that they would make her their servant. She was then made to perform household chores for the family without being paid.
Things took a turn for the worse sometime between May and June 2016, when Hasmah’s daughter Haslinda Ismail confronted the victim for performing sexual acts on her husband.
The victim was then abused repeatedly by several members of the family for over a year, until she was finally taken to hospital in a near-death state in January 2018.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Grace Chua said from June 2016 to sometime in 2017, Hasmah chained the victim to a baby cradle in the living room daily, from around 10pm until the next morning.
Later in 2017, Hasmah then chained the victim to the toilet bowl in bathroom for more than 10 days.
While the victim was staying with the family, Hasmah hit her with a baseball bat multiple times, causing her head to bleed and her ear to become deformed.
On another occasion, Hasmah instigated Haslinda to knock out the victim’s teeth with a hammer, which she did.
Sometime between September and October 2017, when Haslinda got angry with the victim, Hasmah and Haslinda sat on both sides of the victim and, each armed with a pair of pliers, twisted the victim’s toes.
The DPP said Haslinda twisted the victim’s second left toe so forcefully that the victim felt her toe breaking.
To prevent the blood from her toe from smearing the floor, Haslinda and her sister Hasniza took turns to bandage the victim’s injured second left toe with a sanitary pad. But the toe became infected and started oozing with pus, and subsequently became deformed.