Woman stabbed 11-year-old son with fruit knife for entering her room without permission

Shaffiq Alkhatib
The Straits Times
May 17, 2023

A woman flew into a rage and stabbed her 11-year-old son in his right thigh with a fruit knife after he entered her room without permission.

The boy bled profusely and had to be hospitalised for 20 days.

The 41-year-old woman was sentenced to two months’ jail on Wednesday after she pleaded guilty to assaulting her son with a weapon. She cannot be named owing to a gag order to protect the child’s identity.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Emily Koh said that the mother had earlier attacked another person with a weapon in 1999 but did not disclose details of this case.

The woman also suffers from major depressive disorder of mild severity.

But the DPP stressed that this condition did not impede the offender’s knowledge of her wrongful behaviour, adding: “Violent acts against children are particularly odious when they are committed within the setting of a familial relationship because they destroy the bonds of trust and interdependency that exist between family members.”

The boy was in their Punggol flat at about 10am on Nov 6, 2021, when he entered his mother’s room without permission, took her spare mobile phone and began playing with the device.

Furious, she retrieved a fruit knife from the kitchen and found her son lying on a bed in her room with a blanket over him.

DPP Koh told the court: “The accused entered the room, holding the knife in her hand at shoulder level, with the blade pointing downwards.

“The accused pulled the blanket away from the victim’s body with her right hand and, at the same time, she brought the knife down in a stabbing motion, knowing it likely that it would cause hurt to the victim.”

The weapon pierced through the blanket and cut her son’s right thigh, causing him to yell out in pain.

The terrified boy went to his room, locked the door and called the police. He was taken to KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, and hospitalised until Nov 25, 2021.

On Wednesday, DPP Koh asked that the mother be given between two and three months’ jail.

The prosecutor said: “The accused is the victim’s mother and in attacking her own child, has betrayed the ultimate relationship of trust and authority.”

Court documents did not disclose if the boy is still under the offender’s care.

Her bail has been set at $15,000 and she was ordered to surrender herself at the State Courts on June 14 to begin her jail term.