Third, Maryani took out her anger at her own situation and her anger towards Richelle's mother on Richelle.
"We submit that in any event the situation the accused was in was not at all abusive," said Ms Ho. "The deceased's parents had never ill-treated her ... she was given sufficient food. She had in fact threatened to leave on a few occasions, but chose of her own volition to stay on."
Addressing Maryani's mental condition, Ms Ho said that "depression, even if severe, cannot be a licence to kill others".
COULD NOT BEAR WORKLOAD, TRIED TO ASK FOR TRANSFER: DEFENCE
Asking for a sentence of five-and-a-half to six years, Maryani's defence lawyer Mohamed Muzammil Mohamed said Maryani began working at 15 to supplement the income of her family.
She worked as a domestic helper with a family in Saudi Arabia for about four-and-a-half years from 2009, and she was happy working there, where she could use a phone and was given sufficient time to rest, said the defence lawyer.
When she came to Singapore from a village in West Java to work in 2015, she cared for Richelle's three-year-old brother, and later Richelle when she was born. She also did the usual household chores.
She would wake up at 6am and sleep at midnight, but had to wake up again at 2am to 3am to prepare milk and feed Richelle.
"Sometime in March 2015, Maryani felt (it was) unbearable to continue to work with the Teo family as she was frequently scolded by Mrs Teo for not performing her work according to her expectations," said the defence.
After the maid agency turned down her requests to transfer, Maryani asked Mrs Teo if she could return to Indonesia, but was persuaded by her to stay.
Although Maryani was never subjected to physical abuse, Mrs Teo was rude to her and Maryani felt "under close scrutiny of Mrs Teo if she made any mistakes", the defence said.
About a month before the incident, Maryani felt humiliated after she was scolded by Mrs Teo in a shopping mall for forgetting to pack the baby's milk powder before they left home.
This affected her and placed her under undue stress, said the defence. Where the Saudi employer was kind to her, she found the opposite here, and felt "aggrieved by the lack of basic comforts" by her Singaporean employers.
Particularly, she was not allowed to use a mobile phone to call her family, and when she secretly managed to get phones to use for this purpose, they were confiscated by Mrs Teo, said the defence.
"During the one-and-a-half years of working for the Teo family, according to Maryani, she was able to make only six phone calls to her family (through the landline)," he said. "She felt there was no privacy when speaking to her mother as the employers were always around."
A week before the incident, Maryani's mother told her that her business, which she had set up with money remitted to her by Maryani, had failed. This made her sad and depressed, the defence said.
Maryani is remorseful, the defence said, and "the guilt will remain with her throughout her life even after she returns to her village".
Justice Hoo Sheau Peng in passing her sentence said that the law recognises a need to protect vulnerable children against violence, and said she believes the sentence should be sufficient to serve as a signal.
She allowed Maryani some time to speak with officials from the Indonesian embassy after the hearing.
Tag: World , Singapore , Indonesian Maid , Indonesian maid who punched crying baby , causing her death gets 7 years jail