Source: The Straits Times

Cleaner claims his wife struck child twice on the back with a broomstick

A man on trial for killing his daughter took the stand yesterday and accused his wife of having had a hand in it.

Sallehan Allaudin, 27, admitted slapping and punching his daughter Natalie Nikie Alisyia Sallehan for messing with his cigarettes – but alleged that his wife had also assaulted the toddler.

He gave an account of the beating on Jan 6 in the kitchen of the couple’s Boon Lay flat. His account differed from that told by his wife last Monday.

An autopsy found that Nikie, who was not yet two, had died from a tear in a major vein, likely from a hard punch, kick or stomp.

Madam Rozanah Mohamed Yusoff, 24, testified she had seen her husband kicking and stamping on their daughter. But Sallehan maintained yesterday, as he always has, that he had only slapped and punched the girl.

In fact, he told the court, he stopped Madam Rozanah after she had struck Nikie twice on the back with a broomstick.

“I told my wife, I just want to discipline her. I don’t want to use any object to hit her,” he said through a Malay interpreter, on the seventh day of his trial.

Sallehan said he had made no mention of his wife’s involvement in his statements to the police because he had agreed to shoulder the blame.

He said that as they waited for the ambulance, Madam Rozanah reminded him that they had two other children and told him not to drag her into it.

He said he had lied to the police to “protect” his wife as there was no one else to look after the children.

He decided to come clean in court on the advice of his lawyer, who told him recently to “just reveal the truth and not to hide any facts”.

Sallehan, led by his lawyer Mr N. Kanagavijayan, gave a picture of a man who was sleep-deprived, stressed from financial difficulties as well as suspicions that his wife might be having an affair.

He said he worked the night shift as a cleaner, but got no rest in the day as their children were always crying. He said the family scraped by on his $800 salary.

He said his wife was getting calls and SMSes from a man but had threatened to walk out when Sallehan questioned her.

The combination of these, plus Nikie’s loud cries, gave him “so much pressure”, he said. He described Nikie as a naughty child who ate newspapers and faeces.

Two days before the assault, he said, he told her not to touch his cigarettes after he caught her eating one. “She understood,” he said.

Sallehan spoke quietly, his voice rising only when relating how the ambulance took half an hour to arrive. Confusion had arisen because his wife had told the driver to pick them up at a nearby temple, in a bid to avoid prying neighbours.

He said he was in disbelief when his wife told him at the hospital that Nikie was dead.

“I had no intention at all to kill my daughter. I didn’t expect that my actions would cause her death.”

When asked why he had cried, he said: “There’s no parent who would wish for the death of their children.”