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IN A rare move yesterday, a woman and her mother were acquitted of maid abuse after a district court allowed them to compound the offence for $5,000.
Compounding an offence requires the consent of the victim, the prosecution and the court.
Typically, only minor offences such as wrongful restraint or causing hurt can be compounded, and lawyers said such a move is rare in cases of maid abuse.
The last reported case of a maid abuse case being compounded was in April. Then, a bank executive was cleared after paying $5,000 compensation.
Madam Chandrakala Govinda-rajoo, 33, a MediaCorp senior administration executive, and her mother Kassiammal V. Sinnathamby, 66, were granted a discharge amounting to an acquittal.
Madam Chandrakala was initially accused of slapping and kicking her maid, Ms Tarinah, in June last year. She also faced another charge of hitting the maid's head twice with a plastic bowl.
Her mother faced a charge of stepping on Ms Tarinah's hands while the 24-year-old maid was folding clothes in their Choa Chu Kang Crescent flat last year.
At the hearing yesterday, Assistant Public Prosecutor Darren Tan told District Judge Roy Neighbour that the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) would not object to the women's offer of compensation. It is believed this is because the maid's account had some inconsistencies that could damage the prosecution's case.
After their acquittals, Madam Chandrakala and her mother said they were 'relieved'. Their lawyer, Mr Rajan Supramaniam, said Ms Tarinah was the family's second maid, and had worked for three months. They had since employed a third maid.
The Ministry of Manpower (MOM), however, said it is investigating how the employer managed to get another maid.
It added: 'Any employer and members of his/her household will be barred from hiring another foreign domestic worker (FDW) during the course of investigation.
'This is to prevent any FDW from facing the same circumstances in the same household. In this particular case, the official employer, Mr Murali, should not have been granted a work permit for another FDW while members of his household were under investigation.
'MOM is looking into how this could have happened.
MOM will also review whether the current FDW in this household should be permitted to continue to work in the household.'
Ms Tarinah declined to be interviewed.
Ms Bridget Lew, president of the Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics, said she was against compounding. She added: 'Anyone who hurts a domestic worker at home, a place out of the public eye, no matter how slightly, should feel the heavy hand of the law.'
However, Mr Subhas Anandan, president of the Association of Criminal Lawyers, thinks it depends on the case: 'The AGC carefully considers the nature of the evidence and the strengths and weaknesses of the case before deciding if compounding the offence would be in the best interest of all parties.'
