A 30-year-old Singaporean woman received a 19-month jail sentence on May 5, 2025, for abusing two toddlers at the preschool where she worked as a teacher.
The woman’s name remains protected by a gag order to safeguard the victims’ identities.
She admitted guilt to three charges of child mistreatment. Three additional similar charges were considered during sentencing.
The abuse happened on June 22 and June 27, 2022. On the first date, around 10 am, she pulled a table that hit the back of a boy’s head. She then forced his head under the table, keeping him trapped for about 13 minutes.
When the boy cried after being pulled out, she pushed him repeatedly. She then dragged him into a dark storeroom containing dangerous items like a ladder, bleach, cleaning products and insecticides.
While the boy remained alone in the storeroom, she stood on a chair at the entrance. She dropped foam blocks into the room through an opening above the door while smiling.
After releasing the boy, she targeted a girl in her class. She hit the child’s face, pushed her chair and struck her arm because the toddler called out to another teacher despite instructions not to do so.
During the next 15 minutes, she slapped the girl’s face and pushed her, causing her to fall four times.
She also hit the toddler’s face and head with foam blocks multiple times. She forcefully rubbed tissue paper on the crying child’s face and pinched her cheeks.
Five days later, on June 27, the teacher abused both children again.
When the boy lost balance and slid from a chair, she lifted him back up and shoved the chair. This caused his middle section to hit a table.
She then pulled the table backward, trapping him between the table and chair backrest.
The woman slapped his face, pinched his cheeks and hit his hand multiple times with a pen.
That same day, she trapped the girl against a wall using a table and chairs. She lowered the classroom blinds to block outside view and placed a plastic divider on the child’s head to prevent her from looking out.
When the girl tried to escape by crawling, the woman pushed her back under the table. This caused the child to suffer a blow when the table was pushed toward the wall.
She then hit the girl’s face and head repeatedly with the plastic divider.
The abuse came to light when the girl’s mother discovered bruises on her daughter’s face on June 27, 2022.
When questioned through the school’s messaging system, the teacher denied any incident. She wrote that the girl “did not (have) any incident in school yesterday and she was fine just for as usual she cried a little asking for the both of you.”
Despite her denial, the preschool principal started an investigation. The matter was escalated to headquarters, which filed a police report against the woman a month later.
A 29-year-old Chinese national, the woman’s former colleague, received a 14-day jail sentence in April. This was for passively watching while the woman abused one of the children.
Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Ariel Tan told the court that both victims suffered psychological effects from the abuse.
Since June 27, 2022, the girl would cry and whine in her sleep, saying “don’t want” or “no.” Her relationship with her father also worsened for several months because the teacher had told the girl that her father had allowed the teacher to beat her.
The boy developed habits of hiding under tables or sitting in corners of dark rooms whenever disciplined at home.
During the trial, defense lawyer Vinit Chhabra claimed the school commonly punished pupils by placing them in a storeroom or under a table. He also stated the foam blocks used were soft.
The prosecution responded that no evidence supported such practices. They noted that while adults might find the blocks soft, children might not.
District Judge Eddy Tham, who watched the CCTV footage in a closed courtroom, remarked that “the statement of facts made for painful reading, but the video footage made it much worse.”
The preschool fired the offender on June 29, 2022, two days after the last abuse incident.
She now has two young children, aged five months and 17 months, and received bail of $20,000.
She will begin serving her sentence on May 9, 2025.
