Jailed for mistreating maid

SOON after Peck Choon Khim hired a maid in 2008 to help take care of her two adopted children, she started hitting the Myanmar national.
The abuse continued for the next five months and on Friday, Peck, 41, was sentenced to four months' jail.
A district court heard she had mistreated Ms Moe Thandar Lin, on 15 occasions from November 2008. Ms Lin only complained to her agent, after Peck slammed a kettle of hot water against her left arm on March 15 last year.
The agent called the police who found the list of all the incidents listed in the maid's diary.
At the last hearing in January, Peck's lawyer Lim Kim Hong asked the court to be lenient to her client as the maid had been defiant and disrespectful from the very start. The maid was also no help in taking care of the children, aged 18 months and three years.
All the more reason for Peck to get a new maid, said District Judge Ronald Gwee. He added: 'The correct thing to do is to terminate her employment but in this case, there were repeated occasions of abuse. Physical punishment is not allowed. It's a line no employer should cross.'
The maximum sentence is a jail term of three years and a $7,500 fine on each of the four charges