Source: TNP

AFTER beating his daughter senseless, Sallehan Allaudin made milk for her and tried to give her chocolate.

But baby Natalie Nikie Alisyia Sallehan had lost consciousness from her injuries.

Her mother tried to wake her by tapping her cheeks and her father told her that he “did not purposely beat her”.

“I also asked her to wake up, to be strong and not to do this to me,” Sallehan said in one of his two police statements after his arrest.

The parents then called for an ambulance and the toddler was taken to the National University Hospital, where she died later.

Sallehan, 27, is now on trial for the alleged murder of his 23-month-old daughter after beating her in the kitchen of their two-room rental flat in Boon Lay Drive on 6 Jan.

He was upset with her and had hit her after returning home to find that she had played with and broken his cigarettes.

Assistant Superintendent (ASP) David Ang, of the Criminal Investigation Department’s Special Investigation Section, was the lead detective in the case.

He took the stand yesterday to testify about the two statements he took from Sallehan on 9and 13 Jan.

During ASP Ang’s testimony, Deputy Public Prosecutor Stella Tan spent about 10 minutes showing the court pictures of Nikie’s body on the pathologist’s table at the mortuary.

The baby was wearing only a disposable diaper.

MissTan read out details of her long list of injuries.

Little Nikie had bled from injuries on her back, right arm and intestines. She also had injuries on her nose and other parts of her face.

Other injuries mentioned by Miss Tan included bruises on Nikie’s private parts, calf, scalp, leg, hip and internal organs.

Throughout the presentation, Sallehan, a cleaner, showed no emotion.

He just stared at the pictures of his daughter’s lifeless body on the screen and blinked occasionally.

His family members were not in court yesterday.

Later, photos of Sallehan with a white mannequin, representing the 78cm-tall Nikie, were shown.

These pictures had been taken when police took Sallehan back to his flat in June during the investigation of the case.

He had told the police that he dragged her to the kitchen as he did not want the neighbours to hear her cries and think he was abusing her.

In the photos, the mannequin was propped up against a kitchen wall with Sallehan kneeling beside it.

One photo showed how he had used his right hand to slap her across her left cheek. In another, he uses his left hand to slap her across her right cheek. He then used his right fist to punch heron her left arm.

In his statement to the police, Sallehan said that he then went to the living room to cool down and pick up the destroyed cigarettes.

But her cries, which were getting louder and louder, drove him wild.

Unable to control his anger, he squatted behind Nikie and punched her on her back “because I think the back is the strongest part of the body”.

She wailed, got up, struggled to stand in her diapers and then fell backwards. Too weak to support her own weight of 10kg, she lay on the floor.

Sallehan, who dropped out of Marsiling Primary School at Primary 5, described his punches as of “medium” strength.

Left children alone at home

He told the police that he and his wife, Madam Rozanah Mohamed Yusoff, 24, had decided to go shopping that day at 6.45pm.

Sallehan said he had intended to take Nikie along but changed his mind as the couple would only be out for a short while.

So they left Nikie, who was watching television, and their other two children, aged 1 year and 2 months, alone at home.

The couple went to Boon Lay Shopping Centre where he bought a doll set for Nikie and returned home at 7.30pm.

That was when Sallehan found her playing with his cigarettes in the hall and lost his cool.

He said in his statements: “I did not purposely want to beat my child. Please pity me.

“I have a lot of responsibilities. I have another two younger children. If possible, please give me a lighter sentence. I really, really regret what had happened.

“I promise that I will be a good father and give my children the love that they need.”

The trial resumes on Monday.

Previous report: Child killed for ruined cigarettes: Dad was incensed, not insane, say experts