It was a family affair at the courts yesterday as Nur Rizan Mohd Sazali, her brother, mother and her mother's friend were charged with hurting the maid and wrongfully restraining her between June 2 and July 26 last year.

The litany of offences - each of them faces between two and four charges - include pouring hot wax on the maid's head, hitting her back with an iron rod and cane, and pouring hot water on her private parts.

The maid was hired by container driver Elsa Elyana Said, 24. Living with her in her second-storey flat in Block 5, Jalan Minyak, was her friend Maselly Abdul Aziz, 37, and her two teenage children.

Apart from the physical abuse, Elsa Elyana, Nur Rizan and her waiter brother Muhammad Iz'aan Mohd Sazali, 19, were also accused of restraining the maid by tying her hands with a bathrobe.

But the worst abuse said to have been done was yanking out her teeth. Charges tendered in court said it was instigated by the teenagers' unemployed mother.

Elsa Elyana allegedly held her maid's head still while Nur Rizan, an administrative worker, pulled the teeth out. It was not stated in the charge sheets how she did it.

Maselly also faces one charge of criminal intimidation. She is said to have held two knives and told the maid in Bahasa Indonesia: 'I will kill you now if you don't return the money.'

It was not stated in the court documents what money Maselly was referring to when she allegedly made the threat on July 26.

The 28-year-old maid, Ms Badingah, had been working for Elsa Elyana, her second employer, since November 2006. She has two sons in Central Java.

Ms Badingah has been staying at the Indonesian Embassy since she was taken there by the police last August.

District Judge Shaiffudin Saruwan set bail at $10,000 each and ordered that their passports be impounded. All four put up bail and were released from the lock-up by noon. Their pre-trial conference was set for March 27.

The maximum punishment for their most serious offences is a seven-year jail term.

This is the second case in two weeks of an entire household of adults being taken to court for abusing their maid.

A woman, her husband and her mother were charged last month with multiple counts of ill-treating their 23-year-old Indonesian maid, who had been with them for a few months.

Malaysian Loke Phooi Ling, 37; her husband, bank executive Stanley Kuah Kian Chong, 37; and her retired mother, Teng Chen Lian, 66, are said to have attacked the maid using their bare hands, kitchen tools and even detergent and stain removers.

elena@sph.com.sg

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY DIANA OTHMAN