SINGAPORE: A former Mandarin teacher from a Kinderland preschool was handed a jail term of 17 months and two weeks on Thursday ( Mar 13 ) over the abuse of four children, including force-feeding two of them water.  ,
Lin Min, 35, earlier pleaded guilty to three counts of ill-treating a child, with three costs of a similar character taken into consideration. The kids in the fees were between one and three years old.  , Their brands, along with the particular location of the offences may be revealed due to a joke order.  ,
In passing the word, District Judge John Ng said that he could not take the defence’s reasoning that Lin had the happiness of the kids in mind and that the crimes had occurred as a result of ineptness.  ,
” The accused had displayed a distinct disrespect to the negative effects of her deeds of poor care in her attempts to make certain the children drink water.  ,
” But, I do acknowledge that the accused had never acted with hatred,” said Judge Ng.  ,
He noted that there was low physical damage, but that the emotional pain caused to the victims, their families and the other kids at the care center who had witnessed the incidents, could not be overlooked.  ,
The prosecutor factored in the entire punishment discount for Lin’s appeal of grief and the fact that Lin has no legal history. He even took into account the two days that Lin was remanded in the Institute of Mental Health in 2023.
After the statement was passed, Lin asked through her attorney Kalidass Murugaiyan to postpone the start of her prison term for a month, saying that she needed to make arrangements for her child who is poor and very attached to her.  ,  ,
BACKGROUND OF THE CASE
Lin’s case made the news in 2023 after videos of the incidents circulated online. A few incidents involving other teachers from the same preschool chain emerged after that. Lin was then fired and barred from working in the preschool sector.
Court documents from a previous hearing stated that Lin had forced one victim- a girl who was nearly two years old- to lie down, and poured water into her mouth on Jun 30, 2023.
This girl could be heard coughing and choking on water. After her ordeal, the girl would wake up in the middle of the night, crying and saying” no “and” bye bye lao shi (teacher )”.  ,
Also in June 2023, an angry Lin tried to get a boy, then about two years old, to drink water by manhandling him to lie on the floor.  ,
A few days later, she grabbed his forehead and held his head backwards in an attempt to feed him water. This boy would have nightmares saying” no, no, no I don’t want”.  ,
Deputy Public Prosecutor Jotham Tay had said during sentencing submissions that Lin’s acts had an ” ,obvious element of cruelty”, whereas Mr Kalidass maintained that his client had not been acting out of malice and cruelty, but had been concerned that the children might get dehydrated.  ,  ,
For ill-treating a child, Lin could have been jailed for up to eight years, and/or fined up to S$ 8, 000 ( US$ 6, 000 ).  ,