Mother jailed six years and six months for abusing son
Toddler has cerebral palsy and developmental delay after severe brain injuries
A frustrated mother slapped her toddler so hard that he hit his head on the leg of a metal table.
That was not the first time the boy had been abused, and his brain injuries were so severe that he has cerebral palsy now.
Now 23 months old, he also has the developmental age of a six-month-old child.
Yesterday, his mother, 27, was jailed for 6½ years.
She was convicted of two counts of voluntarily causing grievous hurt and one of ill treatment of a child.
Four other charges were taken into consideration.
The court heard yesterday that she did not visit her injured son in the hospital, and will be giving him up for adoption.
The victim is the second of the woman's three children.
Her eldest son, four, and her one-month old boy, were also living with her.
She cannot be named to protect the child's identity.
In March last year, the mother was bathing her children when she saw the victim digging into his diapers and playing with his faeces.
Furious, she slapped him. But he continued to play with his faeces and she slapped him again.
The impact threw him sideways, causing him to hit his head against the leg of a table.
SHOOK VIOLENTLY
The woman tried to calm him down as he wailed but to no avail. When he started shaking violently, she massaged him with oil.
But he was semi-conscious and barely responsive.
When she could not wake him up, she called a friend for help as she was afraid her children would be taken away from her if the authorities were alerted.
The mother eventually called for an ambulance about 15 minutes later on her friend's advice.
At the hospital, the toddler was found to have suffered a fracture on the left of his skull and was haemorrhaging.
He also had multiple bruises of varying ages across his skull and back.
As a resulf of his cerebral palsy and global developmental delay, the boy is likely to be dependent for all his daily needs.
As of early this year, he had not fully recovered, and had to be partially fed through a feeding tube.
His mother had previously punched him multiple times on his chest, and had also pulled his arm so hard that it fractured.
In mitigation, the woman's lawyer, Mr John Koh, said she had had her first child at 23 and had been overwhelmed by the demands of being a young mother. She was also from a disadvantaged family and had acted on the spur of the moment, Mr Koh added.
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