HE was happy when he got home after an hour-long shopping trip on 6 Jan last year. Sallehan Allaudin (above), 27, a cleaner, had even bought dolls for his daughters.
But when he stepped into their Boon Lay flat and saw his oldest child, Natalie Nikie Alisyia Sallehan, playing with his cigarettes, he flew into a rage and beat her up.
The 23-month-old girl died from her injuries later that day.
Yesterday, as the defence and prosecution wrapped up their cases, Justice Lee Seiu Kin said that one of the points he will consider is Sallehan's intention when he beat the child. Justice Lee asked the prosecution: “(Sallehan) was a happy man coming home. He had just bought a present for his daughter. What was his intention?”
Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Natalie Morris replied that Sallehan intended to punish Nikie to “teach her a lesson”. “There was intention to hit Nikie in the back three to four times. He intended to cause his very strong girl pain so she would learn her lesson,” she added.
DPP Morris also pointed out that Sallehan punched Nikie with “severe enough force to cause the injury” that resulted in her death. He had also beaten Nikie knowing that it was an “imminently dangerous act”.
‘Moments of temper’
But Justice Lee noted: “He abuses her, but that is not to say that he doesn’t love her. He has moments of temper.”
During the nine-day trial last year, Sallehan had told the court that Nikie was a “strong” child who could take pain. Yesterday, Sallehan’s lawyer, Mr N Kanagavijayan, repeated this again. He said that as Nikie was a “strong” girl, Sallehan thought that his actions would “only cause some swelling and not death”.
Mr Kanagavijayan added that the events that resulted in Nikie’s death were “just unfortunate”. Nikie died after a delicate and thin-walled blood vessel, or inferior vena cava, linked to the heart ruptured.
Blood started to collect in the sac, known as the pericardium, that holds the heart, leaving it no room to expand and contract. It was a rare cause of death, going by what the forensic pathologist told the court. This was the first time in his 20 years on the job that Dr Teo Eng Swee has seen a rupture in the inferior vena cava.
It posed a problem for the courts. Justice Lee said he had difficulty in determining the force of the fatal punch.
When DPP Morris pointed out that Nikie’s lungs were severely bruised, Justice Lee noted that the punches were not severe enough to cause fractures in the child.
Mr Kanagavijayan said that Sallehan had “no ill-intention” towards Nikie.
Relying on the defence of “grave and sudden provocation”, he reminded the court that Dr Stephen Phang Boon Chye, senior consultant psychiatrist at Institute of Mental Health and Woodbridge Hospital, had testified that Nikie’s crying had “escalated (Sallehan’s) degree of agitation and stress”.
Sallehan was reportedly stressed because of financial difficulties, lack of sleep, and suspicion that his wife was having an affair.
But DPP Morris pointed out that in the 2006 death of 2-year-old Nurasyura Mohd Fauzi, affectionately known as Nonoi, her stepfather, Mohammed Ali Johari, 30, argued that Nonoi’s “continuous and incessant crying made him angrier and caused him to lose self-control”.
The judge in that case was unequivocal that provocation which allegedly came from a child would not be sufficiently grave, said DPP Morris.
Mohammed Ali Johari was later found guilty of murder and hanged in December 2008.
DPP Morris said: “The cries of a child do not constitute provocation.”
Mr Kanagavijayan also maintained that Sallehan’s wife, Madam Rozanah Mohamed Yusoff, who testified for the prosecution, had hit Nikie’s back twice with a broomstick. She denied doing this.
Justice Lee said the case required considerable deliberation. He reserved his verdict to a date not yet fixed.
See also:
