Ex-pre-school teacher admits she knowingly permitted colleague to ill-treat toddler

A pre-school teacher was at work when she saw that one of her colleagues had pushed a table close to a wall to trap a one-year-old girl.

- Shaffiq Alkhatib

When the Chinese national, 29, spotted the toddler moving under the table, she pointed at the child and alerted the colleague, 30, who was also a pre-school teacher at the time. Court documents stated that when the girl got to her feet, the older woman, a Singaporean, shoved the table, which hit the torso of the victim.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Ariel Tan told the court that the older woman also used a piece of plastic to hit the child's head, but her colleague did not intervene when she witnessed these acts of abuse.

The younger woman, who was later suspended from her duties before she was re-deployed to an administrative role, pleaded guilty on April 10 to permitting the toddler's ill-treatment and failing to take steps to protect the child.

The Singaporean woman is expected to plead guilty in May. The parties involved in this case cannot be named as there is a gag order on the witnesses, including the older woman.

DPP Tan said that the two women were jointly in charge of looking after a playgroup class of children, including the victim, who was a few months shy of her second birthday at the time of the incident on June 27, 2022.

The younger woman had entered the girl's classroom around 10.45am and sat facing a table.