Hasnah Hashim was incensed after the maid pressed the button to close the lift doors as she was entering the lift.
Add CNA as a trusted source to help Google better understand and surface our content in search results.cards interface. Give it a try. SINGAPORE: A woman who pulled off her domestic helper's headscarf while in a lift was handed a four-month jail term and ordered to pay S$5,000 in compensation on Wednesday .
The Singaporean pleaded guilty to two out of five counts of causing hurt, with the remaining charges taken into consideration for her sentencing. On Aug 23, 2024, Hasnah and the victim left for the market in the morning and returned at about 7.23am. As the victim reached the ground-floor lobby, she entered the lift and pressed the button to close the doors just as Hasnah was entering.
Hasnah managed to hold the lift doors open and enter, but was incensed by the victim's actions and grabbed her headscarf with both hands, pulling it down forcefully.
"In the process, the accused pulled the victim's hair, causing her to suffer bodily pain, and pulled off the victim's headscarf, causing her humiliation as she wore the headscarf for religious purposes," Deputy Public Prosecutor Timotheus Koh told the court. The victim made a police report later that day and was brought for a medical check.
She was found to have a 2cm bruise on her upper lip from an earlier incident three days before, in which Hasnah had slapped the victim's face after the helper had accidentally placed a pack of tofu in the freezer. Hasnah also hit the victim's forehead with her mobile phone, pinched her thigh and pulled and twisted her ears in separate incidents in August 2024. These offences formed the remaining charges taken into consideration during sentencing.
Due to the incident, the victim remained unemployed from Aug 23, 2024, to date, the prosecution said. Mr Koh told the court that no prospective employer had hired her because of her involvement in the case, as her work could have been disrupted if she had been called to testify.
Mr Koh urged the court to jail Hasnah for between four and six months and sought a compensation order of S$8,500, comprising S$1,000 for pain and suffering and compensation for her loss of earnings. He said the victim had lost about S$18,500 in earnings after being unemployed for around 21 months.
However, the prosecution sought only S$7,500 in compensation, citing a previous case in which an offender was not required to compensate a victim for the entire period of unemployment. Hasnah's lawyer, Mr Abdul Rahman, sought three months' jail for his client, citing her remorse and asking for leniency. The lawyer submitted references from Hasnah's previous domestic helpers, with whom she had a good relationship, to show that Hasnah had been a good employer.
Mr Abdul Rahman added that his client had forked out about S$14,600 for the victim's lodging and food during the period when she was unable to work, and asked for the court to order compensation of S$1,000 instead. However, Mr Koh argued that the victim's food and lodging expenses were separate from her loss of earnings. Senior District Judge Ong Hian Sun imposed a compensation order of S$5,000, comprising S$1,000 for suffering and S$4,000 for the loss of salary.
For voluntarily causing hurt, a person can be jailed for up to three years, fined up to S$5,000, or both. As the offences were committed against a domestic worker under her employment, Hasnah was liable to twice the maximum punishment. Get our pick of top stories and thought-provoking articles in your inbox
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