Ex-kindergarten teacher gets 21-month probation for ill-treating student
SINGAPORE: A former kindergarten teacher who ill-treated a five-year-old student in 2011 has been given 21 months' probation.
The 26-year-old woman has also been ordered to compensate the victim's parents S$1,000.
She cannot be named to protect the child's identity.
In August 2011, the woman punished the girl by making her strip in front of her classmates while they laughed at her.
She also swung the child against a whiteboard to punish her after her classmates claimed she had hit them.
The girl's classmates also complained she had copied their homework.
Two other charges of using criminal force on the girl were taken into consideration.
In his judgement, the district judge described this as "no ordinary case".
He said ordinarily, the court would impose a substantial custodial sentence, but the woman had been a victim of "unspeakable abuse for a prolonged period" when she was young.
She was diagnosed as suffering from untreated depression.
Before she committed the offences, the woman had undergone stress at home and work.
The judge noted the woman's remorse for her actions.
He also noted the child's injuries were not serious. - CNA/xq
Kindergarten teacher who asked pupil to strip was sexually abused when young
AsiaOne
Friday, Jul 19, 2013
SINGAPORE - The former kindergarten teacher who has been placed on probation after asking a five-year-old girl to remove her clothes has been revealed to have been sexually abused by her father when she was young.
Shin Min Daily News reported that it was one of the factors the judge took into consideration when sentencing her to 21 months of probation for the act.
According to a previous report, the 26-year-old teacher from a PAP Community Foundation Education Centre had asked the girl to remove her clothes and stand naked in front of her classmates in a classroom on Aug 15, 2011.
The teacher also swung the girl against a whiteboard, causing her to hit her head against it. The teacher is also accused of pushing her young victim on two occasions in July last year, once causing her to fall on a basket of toys and, on another occasion, causing her to fall and hit her forehead on a wooden shelf.
She has since been fired.
Shin Min reported that after the incident, the teacher felt extremely remorseful and wrote a letter to the child's parents to apologise. This was also one of the mitigating factors the judge considered when handing out the sentence.
In his grounds of decision, the judge said that although the offence is a serious one that would normally merit a jail sentence, this particular case was "no ordinary case".
This is because the teacher herself had suffered "unspeakable" abuse for a long time by a person who was supposed to have been protecting her.
Her father was later jailed for 14 years and she was diagnosed as suffering from untreated depression. According to a psychological report presented to the court, victims of long-term abuse may sometimes replicate the same scenario experienced by the victim.
The judge said he feels she should be given a second chance, and ordered her to perform 40 hours of community service as one of the conditions of the probation and continue to undergo psychiatric and psychological treatment.
She was also ordered to pay $1,000 in compensation to the victim.
see who will laugh last!
