A five-year-old girl was abused by her stepmother, before being beaten to death by her father. Illustration photo by Shutterstock/HTWE
A 35-year-old woman in Singapore was sentenced on Friday to six years and three months in jail for abusing her five-year-old stepdaughter and the girl’s younger brother before the child was later beaten to death by her father.
She admitted to three charges, including child abuse and giving false information to police, while three other charges were taken into account during sentencing, Channel News Asia reported.
The girl, named Ayeesha by the Singapore’s High Court so that “society may remember her,” had been confined naked in a toilet with her younger brother for nearly 10 months before her death.
The children endured nearly two years of abuse and neglect, at times eating their own faeces and parts of a mattress out of hunger.
They were not sent to school, with their father giving various false explanations to authorities about their absence while the stepmother’s own children continued to attend classes.
Ayeesha died from a head injury in August 2017 after her stepmother complained about the children to their father, who then repeatedly slapped the girl until her head tilted back unnaturally.
He later attacked the children a second time after the stepmother complained about them again. He also kicked, stamped on and slapped the girl, who later succumbed to her injuries in the toilet where she was confined.
After realizing Ayeesha had died, the stepmother filed a police report falsely claiming her husband had beaten and raped her, a claim she repeated even during her testimony in the High Court at her husband’s trial.
The father, who was 45 at the time, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2025 after failing in an appeal to reduce his 35-year prison term.
Prosecutors sought a jail term of five to seven years for the stepmother, describing her actions as “inhumane” and “cruel,” adding that she had pleaded guilty whereas her husband had contested the charges.
The woman was allowed to speak briefly with her fiancé in court before she was taken away.
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