Babysitter who poisoned babies gets more jail time for abusing own daughter

SINGAPORE – After a quarrel with her boyfriend, a woman shouted at her 20-year-old daughter for not cleaning up her bedroom and for using her phone, and then repeatedly attacked the younger woman with a clothes hanger, bruising her back.

Sa’adiah Jamari also used a razor to cut her daughter’s thigh.

On Wednesday (Dec 14), Sa’adiah, 42, was sentenced to four months’ jail after she pleaded guilty to one count of voluntarily causing hurt.

She is currently serving a jail term of seven years after she was found to have poisoned two babies under her care in 2016 with an assortment of medicines, including sleeping pills.

Sa’adiah had been working as a babysitter and freelance nurse then.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Heershan Kaur said about the current case that Sa’adiah had been a physically and verbally abusive mother to her own daughters since they were about six years old.

“After each assault, she threatened to send the girls to the girls’ home and to make them homeless if they reported the assaults to the police. She stated that she was violent towards them because she loved them,” said DPP Kaur.

On June 5, 2021, Sa’adiah was at home when her boyfriend told her over a call that he would not be giving her more money, as he had just given her $500 for that week.

Sa’adiah scolded him and then shouted at her two daughters, who were aged 19 and 20, calling them “useless”. She also threw items on the living room floor, making a mess.

Although the two girls helped to clean up, Sa’adiah later barged into the 20-year-old’s bedroom and told her to clean up that room. 

When Sa’adiah saw her daughter using her mobile phone, she became furious, grabbed it and took it into her own room.

The daughter, who needed the phone for a submission to her lecturer, followed her mother to take it back. However, Sa’adiah closed her bedroom door on her daughter’s feet several times, causing her to scream in pain.

Sa’adiah’s other daughter quickly advised her sister to leave the house to avoid things getting worse. 

But Sa’adiah then attacked her elder daughter, kicking her stomach two or three times and punching her eight or nine times.

She also grabbed a clothes hanger and hit her daughter’s back and left shoulder multiple times.

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When the younger daughter saw her mother hitting her sister with the hanger, she ran out of the house and called the police.

But before the police arrived, Sa’adiah used a razor to cut her daughter on her left thigh twice. She also threatened her with kitchen scissors, but her daughter snatched the item and threw it out the window.

Sa’adiah then told her to go retrieve the scissors, and the 20-year-old woman left the unit.

When the police arrived, Sa’adiah’s daughter was taken to hospital, where she was found to have suffered multiple contusions with superficial cuts.

DPP Kaur said: “The two daughters were entirely dependent upon their mother, who should have protected them from any kind of abuse.

“The assault on the victim was not one blow, but a continuous and persistent assault.” 

DPP Kaur also brought up Sa’adiah’s previous conviction as a babysitter and noted how she had a propensity for causing harm to vulnerable victims. 

For voluntarily causing hurt, a person can be jailed for up to three years, fined up to $5,000 or both.

This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.