Engineer Couple Forces Maid To Drink Toilet Water, Rubs Feces On Her Face; Arrested

An IT engineer couple has been put behind bars for subjecting their maid to several humiliating and inhumane acts, including forcing her to drink toilet water and rubbing feces on the victim's face.

The abuses also left the 33-year-old victim with a deformed left ear lobe and hearing loss.

A Singapore court sentenced her employer Ooi Wei Voen to 20 months in prison Monday after she pleaded guilty to four assault charges. Her husband, Pang Chen Yong, was also given four months in jail, after he pleaded guilty to three counts of assault, reported The Strait Times.

The couple employed the victim in 2017. The abuses began three months into the maid's employment after they found her work unsatisfactory.

According to the prosecutor, Ooi would slap the victim, an Indonesian, on both her cheeks when she got upset.

"When Ooi got upset with the victim, she would slap the victim on both her cheeks till they became red - once causing cut on her lips - pound her forehead with her fist or hit the victim's hand with a metal ruler. Other times, Ooi made the victim perform squats, which the victim duly performed because she was afraid that Ooi would hit her instead," said the prosecutor.

The court heard that on one occasion, Ooi was unhappy with the victim after she failed to ensure the laundry was dry. As a punishment, the maid was ordered to wet her own clothes and sleep in them.

On another occasion between July and November 2017, Ooi rubbed a nappy filled with feces on the victim's face and forced her to drink water from a toilet bowl. She also splashed hot water on the victim after she failed to put Ooi's daughter to sleep.

"Sometime between October and November 2017... Pang noticed that his baby was crying and blamed the victim for being late in preparing milk for his baby. Pang then grabbed, pulled, and scratched the victim's ears, causing the victim's ears to become itchy and swollen. The victim's left ear also bled," the prosecutor told the court.

The maid was also hit multiple times on her thighs until she fainted and was also struck on her head.

The maid did not have a phone and so she couldn't inform anyone about the torture she had to deal with. She finally ran away from her tormentors' home in January 2018 before approaching the police with the help of another Indonesian maid.

The couple's lawyer Mervyn Tan defended the couple by telling the court that both accused suffered major depressive disorder.