Babysitter admits lying to police in a statement and court document
A babysitter accused of poisoning two babies under her care admitted in court yesterday that she had lied in a police statement and in a court document.
In her statement to the police in December 2016, Sa'adiah Jamari said when one of the babies had flu, she crushed half an adult flu tablet as she had no such medication on hand for children.
But in court yesterday, Sa'adiah said she had lied, adding: "(I was) provoked by the police. So, I had to say I gave something."
On Tuesday, she also denied administering her medications to the two children.
The 39-year-old Singaporean is accused of two counts of giving poison to the baby girls with the intention of hurting them.
One of them was just five months old at the time, while the other was 11 months old. They are not related to each other.
After Sa'adiah looked after them on separate occasions in late 2016, an assortment of drugs were later detected in the babies.
These included chlorpheniramine, which is an antihistamine, as well as diazepam and alprazolam, which are used to treat anxiety disorders.
Yesterday, the court heard that all the drugs found in the babies had also been detected in Sa'adiah in 2016.
Separately, in earlier court documents known as the summary of the defence, Sa'adiah had stated that she was prescribed with alprazolam, or Xanax, only in 2018.
She had also stated she had never been prescribed diazepam, or Valium, from 2016 to last year.
But on Tuesday, she testified in court that both drugs had been prescribed to her in 2016.
Yesterday, Deputy Public Prosecutor Seah Ee Wei questioned Sa'adiah about her prescription for both drugs.
The babysitter then admitted that she had lied in the summary of the defence on her alprazolam prescription.
Sa'adiah, however, denied that she had lied in order to distance herself from the drugs found in the two babies.
Initially, she also admitted to lying about her diazepam prescription in the summary.
But she later told District Judge John Ng: "I'm not lying. I just can't remember."
Sa'adiah is now out on bail of $10,000 and the trial resumes today.
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