Z
Zhou Tai
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Jul 12, 2011
Maid jailed for stabbing 7-year-old
By Selina Lum
AN INDONESIAN maid who wrote in her diary that she was happy working for a family of four here went on a rampage with a knife and chopper, using them against her employer's seven-year-old daughter.
This was in 2009, when Kumaeroh, who goes by only one name, was eight months into her job. She was preparing the girl for school on Sept 23 that year when she snapped without provocation, grabbed a knife from the kitchen and started stabbing the child.
Then she took a chopper and slashed the girl on her wrist. On Monday, Kumaeroh, now 26, pleaded guilty to a charge of attempted culpable homicide and was jailed eight years by the High Court. The maximum penalty is 15 years.
The victim in the attack, who cannot be named, is now in Primary 3. She has recovered, but still neither eats well nor is comfortable with strangers, said her mother, aged 42.
The court heard on Monday that about three months before the incident, Kumaeroh had it in her head that her employers had hired someone to spy on her, and believed video cameras in the flat were monitoring her.
In sentencing, Justice Woo Bih Lisaid he took into account the Indonesian's tender age, her background, her state of mind and that she was working here, away from her family.
Read the full story in Tuesday's edition of The Straits Times.