JOHOR BARU: A former e-hailing driver was sentenced to eight years and six months in jail for abusing a three-year-old boy and forcing him to eat his own faeces in 2022.
Judicial Commissioner Datuk Abdul Fareed Abdul Gapoor sentenced Chan Wen Jie, 32, after he pleaded guilty to an alternative charge of abusing the child under Section 31(1) of the Child Act 2001.
The High Court ordered Chan to serve his sentence from the date of his arrest on Oct 3, 2022.
He was also ordered to enter into a three-year good behaviour bond with one surety without security and complete 36 hours of community service within six months.
In his grounds of judgment, Abdul Fareed described the act of forcing the boy to eat faeces from his disposable diaper as uncivilised, degrading and wholly unacceptable as a form of discipline.
The court also considered closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage showing Chan subjecting the boy to various forms of abuse, including banging his head, making him perform squats, forcing him to stand for prolonged periods and whipping him.
"The footage showed that the accused's actions went beyond ordinary physical punishment and amounted to excessive and merciless abuse of a three-year-old child who was unable to protect himself," the judge said.
Abdul Fareed said Chan had betrayed the trust placed in him by the boy's father, who had entrusted him with the child's care.
The judge said Chan should have returned the boy to his father if he was unable to care for him.
He also rejected the defence's argument that Chan had disciplined the boy in the same way he disciplined his own child.
However, the court did not consider the withdrawn murder charge under Section 302 of the Penal Code or the cause of the boy's death when determining the sentence for the child abuse offence.
After weighing the aggravating and mitigating factors, the court ruled that the sentence was appropriate for the offence and stressed the need to protect children from abuse.
On Oct 13, 2022, Chan was charged with murdering Lee See Jie, 3, at a house in Jalan Ria 2, Taman Skudai Ria, Skudai, between 8pm and 8.30pm on Oct 2, 2022.
Deputy public prosecutors Edelynn Wong and Nordiana Zubir prosecuted the case, while Chan was represented by lawyer K. Sarawanakumar.
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