Singapore woman killed maid after 'inhumane' abuse, as had happened in Malaysia

Star Online:

Singaporean woman admits to killing maid after 'inhumane' abuse



Gaiyathiri Murugayan being taken back to her home by police for investigations on Aug 3, 2016. - LIANHE WANBAO

SINGAPORE (The Straits Times/ANN): Chilling footage of an emaciated domestic worker being grabbed by the hair and shaken like a rag doll was played in court on Tuesday (Feb 23).

Her Singaporean employer, the wife of a police officer, admitted that she had starved, tortured and ultimately killed her 24-year-old Myanmar helper.

Prosecutors are seeking life imprisonment for Gaiyathiri Murugayan, 40, after she pleaded guilty to 28 charges, the most serious being one of culpable homicide.

For close to 10 months, the maid, Piang Ngaih Don, was physically assaulted almost daily, deprived of food and rest, and made to shower and relieve herself with the toilet door open.

In the last 12 days of her life, she was tied to the window grille at night while she slept on the floor.

The Myanmar national weighed 24kg when she died on July 26,2016, from the final assault, having lost 38 per cent of her body weight since she started working for the family on May 28,2015.

(l) Gaiyathiri Murugayan, (r) Piang Ngaih Don

The ordeal she suffered in the last month of her life was captured on CCTV cameras that Gaiyathiri and her husband, Kevin Chelvam, 41, had installed in various parts of their Bishan flat to monitor the maid and their two children.

In one incident, the couple's one-year-old son could be seen toddling around as his mother assaulted the maid.

Gaiyathiri's mother, Prema S. Naraynasamy, 61, who often stayed at the flat, was also seen in the footage.

Both Prema and Chelvam face multiple hurt-related charges in connection with the victim. Their cases are pending in the State Courts.

The defence is seeking a global jail term of 14 years for Gaiyathiri, noting she developed major depressive disorder while she was pregnant with her son, and this amplified her obsessive compulsive personality disorder.

But prosecutors argued that her psychiatric condition had already been taken into account when the charge related to Piang's death was reduced from murder to culpable homicide.

Justice See Kee Oon will give his decision on the sentence at a later date.

The court heard that Piang, who had a three-year-old son, was working outside Myanmar for the first time and was not allowed to have a mobile phone or have any day off.

Gaiyathiri was unhappy with her performance and felt she was slow, had poor hygiene practices and ate too much.

She established a set of rules involving hygiene and order, and would shout when she felt Piang was being disobedient. This escalated to physical abuse in October 2015.

CCTV footage showed Gaiyathiri pouring cold water on Piang, slapping, pushing, punching, kicking her and stomping on her while she was on the ground.

She also hit Piang with objects like a plastic bottle or metal ladle, pulled her from the ground by the hair, burned her with a heated iron and choked her.

The maid's meals often comprised sliced bread soaked in water, cold food straight from the refrigerator or some rice at night.

She was allowed to sleep for only about five hours a night and did her chores wearing multiple layers of face masks as Gaiyathiri found her unhygienic.

Between 11.40pm and 11.55pm on July 25, Gaiyathiri assaulted Piang for being too slow in doing laundry.

Gaiyathiri and Prema then took turns to pour water on her and assaulted her together, and left her tied to the window grille without any dinner.

Between around 4.55am and 5am, Gaiyathiri repeatedly kicked and stomped on Piang's head and neck area repeatedly, grabbing her by the hair and pulling her head back such that her neck extended backwards twice, and choking her repeatedly.

At 7.30am, Piang was found motionless, and Chelvam left for work.

After failing to revive her, Prema suggested they call for a doctor.

Gaiyathiri called a nearby clinic between 9.30am and 9.45am and asked for a house call, lying to the nurse she found the victim on the kitchen floor.

Dr Grace Kwan, through the nurse, suggested calling for an ambulance but Gaiyathiri insisted on waiting for the doctor.

While waiting, the two women changed Ms Piang out of her wet clothes and carried her to the living room sofa.

When Dr Kwan arrived at about 10.50am, she told both women the maid was dead, but they expressed shock and lied that she had moved just minutes earlier.

Dr Kwan insisted they call the police but Gaiyathiri asked for some time to call her husband.

When the doctor asked Gaiyathiri if she had beaten the victim, she denied doing so.

After a few minutes, Dr Kwan called for an ambulance.

Paramedics arrived at about 11.30am and pronounced Piang dead.

An autopsy report found a total of 31 recent scars and 47 external injuries all over the maid's body.

It found that the repeated choking of the victim on July 25 had led to oxygen deprivation to the brain, which resulted in death.

*********

kt notes:

I posted the following (titled Continuing abuse of foreign maids) on 12 Feb 2018:

Yesterday, Sunday, Adelina an Indonesian domestic helper died at the Bukit Mertajam Hospital. She was only 21. Earlier she was rescued by police and sent to hospital after Bukit Mertajam DAP MP Steven Sim’s office lodged a report about her conditions.

We learnt her employers forced Adelina to sleep at their car porch with their Rottweiler pet dog for about 2 months.

Would anyone like to sleep with a Rottweiler outside the house? Oh, don't worry, it's not only the dog which will keep you company because there will be thousands of mosquitoes, insects and even creepy crawlies, etc. For sure, you won't be alone.

Since there has been a dog involved, guess the ethnicity of her employer? Leaving aside her death which will be investigated by the police, her employer should be flogged for making a maid sleep with a dog at the porch and further whipped for not cooperating with Steven Sim's staff when it was obvious Adelina was in bad shape.

(l) employer Ambika MA Shan, (r) Adelina Lisao

Besides not getting paid for over two years, she was brutally abused and tortured by her employer.

Adelina was just in her early 20s, was rescued from her employer's home in Penang when a neighbour spotted her sleeping next to a dog in the home porch for over a month.

Her face was covered with bruises and her arms and legs were covered with burn marks and injuries. She was forced to sleep outside as there was pus oozing from her injuries.

Sadly, though Lisao was rescued, she succumbed to her injuries within a day and died due to multiple organ failure at the Seberang Jaya Hospital.

We have heard of foreign maids being tortured with a hot iron, beaten, starved etc, but we keep hearing about new innovative Malaysian ways of humiliating, abusing and torturing them. We have taken the abuses to the extreme this time because we have killed one, maybe not directly but indirectly through neglect of her health and well-being.

A terrible state: A picture of the allegedly abused maid sitting at the porch of the house in Taman Kota Permai, taken by one of MP Steven Sim’s assistants.

Those unfortunate maids came to Malaysia because they need to earn money for themselves and their families. They didn't expect to be abused, tortured, abused physically and mentally, and now even killed. They are human beings and should be properly respected even though they work as maids.

All I want to say at this stage is something I have said before in my blog - Malaysians are NOT fit to have foreign maids whether from Indonesia, Khmer Republic, Philippines, etc. In this area, Malaysians are bastards and bitches.

I urge the authorities to STOP the practice of allowing Malaysians to employ such foreign maids. Malaysians should and must learn to look after themselves, more so when they have shown they couldn't look after an employee.

* much to many people's anger, her employer, Ambika MA Shan, who was charged with murder, was reportedly granted a full acquittal by the High Court after the prosecution requested a discharge not amounting to an acquittal. WTF.

The reason for her acquittal was that Ambika was in her 60s and in poor health - though, she wasn't that old or poor in health enough to stop her from brutalising a helpless maid to her death, apart from her brazen oppressive abuse of not paying Adelina for two years.

And as reported, some eff-ing Singaporeans are as equally cruel and wicked like Ambika MA Shan. I trust the Singapore Court will give due justice for Piang Ngiah Don, which the Malaysian court failed to do so for Adelina Lisao.