Roslinda Jami and Mohamad Fazli Selamat jailed for abusing 11-year-old girl who died of head injuries

[The_King]

SINGAPORE: A couple who abused an 11-year-old girl who died of head injuries was sentenced to jail on Thursday (Feb 15), with the stepfather getting a heftier term as he had killed the girl with blows from an exercise bar.

 

The court also lifted the gag orders on the identities of the two abusers, even though the pair argued against it citing the impact on their surviving children.

Roslinda Jamil, 30, was sentenced to seven years, eight months and three weeks' jail for multiple charges. These include allowing the death of a child, the first such prosecution here involving the charge.

Mohamad Fazli Selamat, 29, was given 15 years and 11 months' jail and 12 strokes of the cane. His charges include culpable homicide not amounting to murder, ill-treating the victim and voluntarily causing hurt with a weapon.

The girl had been abused by both her mother and stepfather for months in 2020.

Fazli made her perform physical exercises as punishment. He also struck her with items such as a wooden backscratcher and a cane when she made mistakes in her homework for instance, or slept instead of studying.

 

Roslinda made the victim eat chilli padi. She also poured hot water over her daughter on one occasion, blistering her skin. 

The child did not go to school for a few months because Fazli and Roslinda feared that her bruises and injuries would lead to the discovery of the abuse.

Despite attempts by school representatives to visit the girl, the offenders managed to evade detection by not allowing them to enter the flat, or by setting up a video call in dim lighting with the girl in long-sleeved pyjamas.

In early November 2020, Fazli noticed that the girl was eating very slowly and got angry. 

He made her get into a push-up position and beat her back repeatedly with a weightlifting bar.

On Nov 6, 2020, Fazli was upset again that the girl was slow to take rice and struck her with the exercise bar. He swung it at her head with such force it bent the bar.

The girl was knocked senseless but her stepfather managed to resuscitate her. Her head swelled up and she was bleeding from her ear. 

Roslinda did not intervene.

Over the next few days, the couple decided not to take the girl to the hospital as they did not know how to account for her wounds.

When Fazli hit the girl again, Roslinda told him "enough" and asked if he wanted to beat the girl to death. However, she bit her daughter's arm thrice to stop her from crying while massaging the girl's arm.

 

The girl collapsed and died on Nov 10, 2020. She weighed only 20kg.

Her injuries included fractures of her skull, bruises all over her body, fractured ribs, bite marks and blunt force injuries on her head, face, chest, hips and limbs.

In mitigation, both Fazli's and Roslinda's lawyers highlighted their respective traumatic and difficult backgrounds.

 

A psychiatrist from the Institute of Mental Health found that Fazli was previously a victim of child abuse and was vulnerable to being an abuser himself.

Defence lawyer Mohamed Muzammil Mohamed detailed how Roslinda was a single mother after getting pregnant at the age of 16. She suffered physical and emotional abuse in her first marriage before marrying Fazli.

She was entirely dependent on Fazli for finances. She was also busy breastfeeding her infant and looking after her young sons when he was abusing the victim, the lawyer said.

Defence lawyer Ahmad Nizam Abbas said Fazli had no experience in marriage and parenting and was "forced" to transition from a single man to a husband and parent immediately when he married Roslinda.

He said Fazli did not have role models to study or follow, coming from a troubled family himself with abuse from his own father.

THE GAG ORDER

After the couple was sentenced, Deputy Public Prosecutor Kumaresan Gohulabalan asked for the gag order to be lifted.

He explained that the gag orders had been imposed in the first place to protect the victim's siblings if they were called to trial as witnesses.

However, now that the case has been dealt with, this consideration no longer applies, said the prosecutor.

The defence lawyers then consulted their respective clients on this. Mr Muzzamil said Roslinda feels the gag order should not be lifted as she has two children from her first marriage.

They are in the custody, care and control of her ex-husband, while the third child - the one she has with Fazli - has been fostered out by the Child Protective Service.

The children can be easily identified if the gag order is lifted, said the lawyer.

Fazli's lawyer similarly said his client's child could be impacted if the gag order is lifted.

In response, Mr Kumaresan cited the Children and Young Persons Act which states that identifiable information linked to children should not be published if they are the subject of court proceedings or are witnesses in court proceedings.

In this case, the victim's siblings are not witnesses in the court proceedings, nor is the case against them.

The judge agreed with the prosecutor's interpretation of the law and lifted the gag orders.