Man used kids as ‘punching bags’, killed 5-year-old daughter

Ayeesha was only five when she died in the toilet in her home from a head injury after her father, who had martial arts training, relentlessly smacked her.

When her broken body finally gave up in 2017 after two years of abuse, it was riddled with multiple scars, marks and other external injuries. She was also severely malnourished.

Her biological father had started ill-treating Ayeesha and her brother, who is a year younger, in 2015.

He underfed the toddlers, causing the girl, who was only 3 then and her brother to be so hungry, they ate their own faeces and the stuffing of a mattress.

The siblings were below the 3rd percentile of their age group, which meant 97 per cent of the other children in their age group were bigger and heavier than them.

Besides being severely undernourished, Ayeesha’s brother was diagnosed with global developmental delay due to social deprivation. He had to undergo physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy.

When he was admitted to hospital after being rescued, he was not able to stand by himself despite being almost four years old. He spent more than three months in hospital, before he was well enough for to be placed in foster care.

On April 30, the 44-year-old man was sentenced by the High Court to an unprecedented jail term of 34½ years and 12 strokes of the cane.

He pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of culpable homicide for the girl’s death, four charges of child abuse, and one charge of disposing of evidence.

Another 20 charges, for child abuse and for lying to the police, were taken into consideration.

He was originally charged with murder for the death, and went on trial in July 2023. Partway through the trial, he accepted the prosecution’s offer to amend the charge.

The two victims were his children from his previous marriage. He married his second wife, 33, who has a 12-year-old daughter from her previous marriage, in 2015. They have three children together.

The man cannot be named owing to a gag order to protect the identity of his son, who survived the abuse.

Justice Aedit Abdullah, however, lifted the gag order in relation to the first name of the daughter “so that society may remember her”.

The High Court judge agreed with prosecutors that the man deserved an unprecedented sentence.

Justice Abdullah said: “The sentence is heavy. It is unprecedented perhaps, but your acts were unprecedented and hopefully will remain unsurpassed in cruelty.”

The two children suffered “sadistic and cruel” physical abuse, and were also mentally and emotionally traumatised, said the judge.

“Your children depended on you for love, care and nurturing. Instead, you subjected them to inhumane, disgusting abuse,” he said, adding that the man had essentially used the children as “punching bags for whatever frustration or anger you felt”.

The judge said the punishment reflected a denouncement of such “loathsome and sickening acts” and served to deter others from committing any abuse of this kind. 

Horrendous treatment

Three video clips were played in court on April 30 as prosecutors narrated the sequence of events, providing a glimpse into the man’s horrendous treatment of the two children.

One video, from the family’s own closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera, showed the man inflicting at least 86 forceful hits on Ayeesha during a 16-minute assault which took place March 27, 2016.

The man had assaulted her in anger as he was changing her diaper after she smeared her faeces on the wall.

In the video, Ayeesha and her brother could be seen wearing only diapers. They are barricaded in the “naughty corner” of a one-room flat.

In the video, he repeatedly slaps her, pounds her face with his fists, kicks her and canes her, as she cowers in fear.

He also points a pair of scissors at her, grabs her by the hair and lifts her up against a wall by the neck while punching her. After the attack, he wipes the blood from her face and cleans a blood stain off the wall.

In another video, captured on Aug 27, 2016, the man repeatedly canes the two children, who were in a double-seater pram in the living room.

Justice Abdullah asked prosecutors about the man’s wife and Deputy Public Prosecutor Norine Tan replied that the prosecution will be reviewing the case against her.

The man’s two children were initially placed in foster care in June 2014, after their parents divorced.

In early 2015, the children were returned to the care and custody of the man, who was their main caregiver.

After the two children were returned to their father, staff from a family service centre, which worked with the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF), continued checking on their welfare.

In May 2015, he took the two children along with him to attend a counselling session at the centre. Since then, the children were not seen by any case officer and had not attended any school.

On subsequent visits, he lied to the case officers that the children were staying with his mother or other relatives.

The man and his wife initially provided the two children with three meals a day, but he cut this down to two meals a day when he started facing financial difficulties.

The two children began playing with, and eating, their own faeces because they were hungry.

Towards the end of 2015, the man and his wife began hitting Ayeesha, who was then three years old, and her brother, who was only 2.  

From February to October 2016, the couple confined the children in a “naughty corner”, with a bookshelf and a wardrobe to block their escape. The man also installed a camera to monitor the children.

The children were only let out during meal and bathing times. Meanwhile, the abuse continued.

In October 2016, the man called the case officer and asked for the children to be placed in foster care as he feared that he might harm them out of frustration.

He said he wanted to give the children up for adoption, and was given contact details of the adoption service, but ultimately did not follow through with it.

He and his wife were told that the adoption process could not proceed unless the biological mother also gave consent or unless MSF could facilitate the dispensation of her consent.

That month, the couple moved the naughty corner to the toilet, and the man installed a camera in the kitchen to monitor the children.

On the night of Aug 10, 2017, his wife complained to him that Ayeesha refused her instructions to move her legs. 

The man then pulled Ayeesha up by her arm, smacked her 15 to 20 times on her face, and went to bed.  

At about 3am on Aug 11, 2017, the wife complained to the man that the children were sleeping in a weird posture. The man then punched the children on their backs, kicked and stamped on Ayeesha, and slapped her face. 

That evening, the man’s wife realised that Ayeesha was unresponsive.

Upon realising that Ayeesha was dead, the man told his wife to file a police report against him for beating her up and raping her, supposedly as part of a cover-up plan.

In the early hours of Aug 12, 2017, he threw away evidence, including the CCTV camera, into different rubbish bins at nearby blocks.

He then placed his son and Ayeesha’s body into a pram, and went to Singapore General Hospital (SGH). He lied to SGH staff that the girl only became unresponsive that morning.

After Ayeesha was pronounced dead by the doctors, the police were alerted about the case.

The man continued to lie to police officers and fabricated a story about the Ayeesha hitting her head on a slide at the playground.

It was only when he was confronted with footage from police surveillance cameras that contradicted his story, that he admitted to these lies.