SINGAPORE: The Court of Appeal has sentenced a woman who scalded her five-year-old son to death to life imprisonment.
In a written judgment issued on Tuesday (Oct 18), the court also ruled that her husband, who had already been sentenced to life imprisonment earlier, would face no caning.
Azlin Arujunah and her husband Ridzuan Mega Abdul Rahman, both 30 years old, had caused the death of their son by causing cumulative scald injuries on him by splashing or pouring hot water on him over a week in October 2016.
The boy suffered other abuse including being hit with a hanger, pinched with pliers and confined in a cage meant for the family cat. He limped in pain and had blisters and peeling skin from the repeated scalding.
Eventually, he fell forward while attacked with hot water in the toilet on Oct 22, 2016, and stopped moving. He was taken to hospital only after more than six hours as his parents were afraid of getting arrested.
The couple had claimed trial to charges of murder initially. They were acquitted of murder at first and given lesser charges of voluntarily causing grievous hurt by heated means. Their initial sentences were 27 years’ jail each, with caning for Ridzuan and an additional 12 months’ jail in lieu of caning for Azlin.
The prosecution appealed and the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, convicting Azlin of murder.
In a written judgment by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon and Justices Andrew Phang, Judith Prakash, Tay Yong Kwang and Steven Chong, the court said the case presented “an especially tragic set of facts”.
“The deceased was a young child whose death was caused by his own parents in circumstances that were cruel, inexcusable, and entirely avoidable,” wrote the judges.
“However, it is also well established in our jurisprudence that, while cruelty or a display of inhumane treatment is a relevant consideration, the court ‘should not be distracted by the gruesomeness of the scene of the crime’ in determining whether the death penalty should be imposed.”
The prosecution had sought the death sentence for Azlin.
THE REASONS FOR NOT IMPOSING DEATH SENTENCE ON AZLIN
The court said the key factor weighing against the imposition of a death penalty for Azlin was the judge’s finding that Azlin did not “entirely comprehend the likelihood of death resulting from (her) actions”.
The trial judge also did not find on the evidence that Azlin intended to cause an injury that was sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death, which is why the judge acquitted Azlin of the murder charges at first.
The Court of Appeal found that Azlin intended to cause the scald injuries without comprehending that there was at least a real possibility that they could kill her son.
Azlin had said in her statement to the police that she thought the injuries would heal on their own, citing her own experience as she had also been scalded by her parents as a child.
She also attempted to administer some “self-help treatments” on her son, even if these proved “woefully inadequate”, the court noted.
For example, she bought cream from a provision shop to apply on the peeling skin on her son’s arms and chest. She also used tap water to rinse her son after a scalding incident and put baby powder on his chest and stomach.
“None of this detracts from the horrific, acceptable and vicious nature of the injuries,” the court noted. “Azlin was the mother of the deceased, and for her to intentionally commit the various acts of abuse against her young son is immensely disturbing.”
NO CANING FOR RIDZUAN
For Ridzuan, the court declined to order caning on him as the prosecution sought. The judges found that Ridzuan participated in only two of the four scalding incidents that led to his son’s death. He also applied medicated oil on the boy and asked his aunt to apply baby powder on him.
The court said it would not “double-count” certain factors by increasing Ridzuan’s life sentence further by adding on 12 strokes of the cane.
They cited the principle of parity, saying it should apply in this case even though husband and wife were convicted of different offences.
The principle of sentencing parity notes that “where the roles and circumstances of the accused persons are the same, they should be given the same sentence unless there is a relevant difference in their responsibility for the offence or their personal circumstances”, the court said.
“As the (trial) judge noted, it was Ridzuan who ‘introduced a culture of violence into the family and home through his initial abuse of Azlin’, and who carried out the first abusive act against the deceased,” said the court.
The more severe acts of abuse were carried out by Ridzuan, including using pliers on him, applying a heated spoon to his palm and punching his nose such that it fractured.