An unemployed man who committed various offences including beating up the children of his girlfriend with dangerous means was sentenced to 10 years' corrective training and 18 strokes of the cane on Tuesday.

The 35-year-old man, who cannot be named due to a gag order, had admitted to seven of 18 charges including drug-related ones and rioting.

In the child abuse charges, the court heard that on May 26, he learnt that his girlfriend's four-year-old son had lost the house electricity top-up device. He then called his girlfriend's nine-year-old girl to the living room, made her stand on the table, and struck her right thigh and back with a hockey stick a few times, causing multiple bruises.

Eight days later, when the girl failed to finish folding clothes within 15 minutes, he took a hammer and hit two of her fingers. The next day, the victim ran out of the house and took an MRT to her grandmother. A police report was made.

Assistant Public Prosecutor Daniel Marini told the court earlier that acting on a tip-off, Central Narcotics Bureau officers arrested the accused at his 32-year-old girlfriend's flat in Woodlands on Feb 20 last year.

Investigation showed that a few days before that, he had paid $950 to a Malaysian drug supplier for 15 packets of heroin and 5g of "Ice'', the street name for methamphetamine. He gave a packet of heroin to a client on credit and kept the rest in his girlfriend's handbag at the flat.

A warrant was issued when he failed to turn up in court on May 30. He was re-arrested last Aug 18.

The accused's previous convictions included theft, criminal intimidation, drug trafficking and long-term drug consumption.

The accused had also beaten his girlfriend's four-year-old son and another daughter aged eight with dangerous weapons and these were among the 11 charges considered in his sentencing.