A 42-year-old divorced property agent was jailed for seven weeks by a Singapore court on Monday after pleading guilty to three counts of child abuse, having been witnessed beating his 10-year-old son on two occasions.
The defendant had custody of his younger son and daughter while his former wife had custody of their eldest son, Lianhe Zaobao (Singapore) reported.
On December 30, 2015, while the father was driving with his son and daughter, he casually chatted with the boy about an outing the children had recently shared. The daughter remarked that they had met with their mother during the trip.
The man was said to be furious as he had not been informed that his former wife would be participating in the children’s activity. He was also angry at his son, blaming him for hiding the fact that their mother was at the outing by staying silent.
The man slapped the boy in the face with his left palm. He stopped the car by the roadside and continued the interrogation, but the boy remained quiet. When the father raised his hand again, the boy covered his face, so the man hit his head instead.
At 7:30am of January 2, 2016, the father, who was upset by family financial problems and annoyed by his son, who had been irritating his younger sister, used a clothes hanger to beat the sleeping boy multiple times on the body, causing him to wake up.
The beating was stopped by the family’s domestic helper, who approached to take the hanger away, and asked him to leave.
According to a medical report, the boy sustained three welts on the left arm and a scratch on his right wrist.