Teacher to stand trial for alleged abuse of special needs child at Kuching tuition centre

KUCHING (Oct 11): A teacher who has initially been granted a peace bond will be brought to trial in connection with the suspected abuse of a six-year-old girl with special needs at a tuition centre here.

According to the Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) Public Complaints Bureau chief Milton Foo, the police have received new instructions from the deputy public prosecutor to charge the suspect under Section 323 of the Penal Code, with the case scheduled for court next week.

The bureau received an official response from the Attorney General’s Chambers (AGC) on Thursday and the appointed lawyer for the case, Russell Lim, had also confirmed that the prosecution could go on after going through the analysis process, said Foo.

“Any abusive acts of any kind towards a helpless child must not be condoned and shall be brought to the court for justice to prevent such unfortunate events in future,” he said during a press conference at SUPP headquarters here today.

The child’s parents, who were present, expressed relief that the matter could finally be brought to justice.

According to the mother, she noticed a swelling at her child’s cheek upon her returning from the tuition centre on June 18.

The mother then consulted her daughter’s teacher, only to be informed that the swelling was from a fall.

The injury had caused the girl to keep crying and this prompted her mother to bring her to see a doctor, to which she was advised by the doctor to request for a viewing of the tuition centre’s closed circuit television (CCTV) footage.

After countless requests, the mother finally gained access to the full CCTV footage where she saw the teacher slapping her child.

A police report was made the day after the viewing of the footage, and the parents had stopped sending their child to the tuition centre since then.

On Aug 1, the teacher in her 20s, was taken to court to sign a peace bond under Section 67 of the Criminal Procedure Code, to which the family of the child was not informed of this decision.

Lim, the plaintiff in this case, deemed it highly inappropriate and unjust for this issue to be resolved through a court bond application.

“You are sending a message to the public that in cases involving child abuse, you can get away with it, you can maintain peace and be released, and this is fundamentally wrong from the start,” said Lim who was also present at the press conference.

For the record, the teacher did not sign the peace bond and Lim had to send a letter to the AGC on Aug 29 to file a prosecution.

The parents had also approached Foo on this incident, to which the latter brought this issue forward to SUPP president Datuk Amar Dr Sim Kui Hian, resulting in a second letter response from the AGC on Oct 3.