What drove housewife to violence

Gaiyathiri Murugayan was so preoccupied with cleanliness that she made her then husband drive her to a clean toilet from her workplace on a daily basis.

At home, she ordered her sister-in-law to wear a shower cap in the flat after noticing some strands of her hair on the floor. She also made her family members wear masks to prevent contamination from their nasal discharge.

Excessive washing of hands and cleaning around the house were de rigueur for her.

Gaiyathiri's fears of contamination led her to monitor her maid, Ms Piang Ngaih Don, on a closed-circuit television system installed in the flat.

When she reviewed the footage and discovered that the maid was sneaking into the kitchen at night and eating food from the dustbin, her concern was not about Ms Piang Ngaih Don not having enough to eat but that what she was doing was unhygienic.

The maid's meals were often only sliced bread soaked in water, cold food straight from the refrigerator and sometimes rice at night.

Ms Piang Ngaih Don, who weighed 39kg when she started work at the household in May 2015, weighed 24kg when she died 14 months later.

But Gaiyathiri perceived the weight loss to be from an illness.

On the morning of July 26, 2016, Gaiyathiri tried to wake Ms Piang Ngaih Don up and failed.

She kicked the maid, pulled her up by the hair and choked her twice in her attempts to wake her up.

Gaiyathiri believed she was just refusing to wake up, but the maid was later pronounced dead.

Ms Piang Ngaih Don, who weighed 39kg when she started work in May 2015, weighed only 24kg when she died. She was given little food, often only sliced bread soaked in water, cold food from the fridge or some rice.

The 24-year-old was assaulted almost daily, often several times a day.

She was slapped, pushed, punched, kicked, stamped on, and attacked with objects, including a broom, a metal ladle and other hard things. She was also grabbed by her hair and burnt on the forehead and arm with a hot iron.

She was also made to shower and relieve herself with the toilet door open, wear multiple face masks while working and, in the last 12 days of her life, was tied to the window grille at night.

She was allowed to sleep only five hours each night.

Early on July 26, 2016, when she failed to be roused by her employer, she was kicked, choked repeatedly and had her face and neck stamped on. An autopsy report found a total of 31 recent scars and 47 external injuries all over her body.

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This is part of the account of how Gaiyathiri, 41, ended up killing Ms Piang Ngaih Don, 24, that was set out in mitigation pleas by Gaiyathiri's former and current lawyers, citing relatives.

The Singaporean, a housewife who used to work as an administrative assistant, had no history of maid abuse prior to her offences against the Myanmar national, the lawyers had said.

In the period of about nine months before her death, Ms Piang Ngaih Don was burnt with a hot iron, slapped, pushed, punched, kicked and stamped on.

She was also made to shower with the door open and was tied to the window grille at night while she slept on the floor during the last 12 days of her life - so that she would not be able to eat food from the dustbin.

Gaiyathiri pleaded guilty to 28 charges - including one for culpable homicide - in February and was sentenced to 30 years' jail last Tuesday.

Gaiyathiri's former husband Kevin Chelvam, 42, and her mother, Prema S. Naraynasamy, 62, also face charges. Their cases are pending.

Gaiyathiri was initially charged with murder. This was reduced to culpable homicide as she was assessed to have developed depression while pregnant with her son, which reduced her responsibility for her actions. Her son was born in 2015.

It was not disputed by the prosecution and the defence that her depression, as well as her obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD), contributed significantly to her offences.

Lawyers Sunil Sudheesan and Diana Ngiam, who represented Gaiyathiri when she pleaded guilty in February, said in a mitigation plea that Gaiyathiri began experiencing OCPD symptoms in 2005.

She was "pathologically preoccupied with cleanliness, hygiene, order, prevention of contamination, a need for control, and a rigid commitment to high standards which she expected of herself and others", they said.

After her daughter's birth in 2012, Gaiyathiri devised a set of 11 rules governing hygiene, specific cleaning instructions and deadlines for each of Ms Piang Ngaih Don's predecessors to follow at home.

These included having the helper complete her work and shower by 5.30pm every day.

"The reason for this rule was that (she) said her prayers at 6pm and considered it to be a bad omen if the women in the flat had not showered by the time of her prayers," the lawyers said.

They also said her sudden turn to violence occurred after the birth of her son, when she frequently lost her temper at her family members.

Gaiyathiri's OCPD created stressors, while her depression reduced her capacity to tolerate the stressors, and this ultimately led to anger outbursts, the lawyers added.

She also perceived Ms Piang Ngaih Don, who began working for her about three months after her son's birth, as having poor hygiene, being disobedient and incompetent.

The lawyers said her numerous assaults were overreactions to the helper's perceived misdemeanours.

The last straw came on July 25, 2016, after Gaiyathiri found that Ms Piang Ngaih Don had breached some of her rules, including by hiding the children's toys in gaps in the sofa instead of putting them back in their stipulated places.

It appeared to Gaiyathiri that Ms Piang Ngaih Don had not learnt from her previous mistakes and was deliberately trying to provoke her, said the lawyers.

Gaiyathiri's current lawyer Joseph Chen said in a further mitigation plea dated June 8 that she was overwhelmed by her children's illnesses in 2015 and 2016.

His client attributed the illnesses to Ms Piang Ngaih Don's poor hygiene, based on her observation that the helper did not wash her hands before touching cookware or touched cooked food with unwashed hands.

Through Mr Chen, Gaiyathiri's father told The Sunday Times that she was "a normal person" who was fussy about cleanliness but changed significantly after the birth of her second child.

In sentencing Gaiyathiri last Tuesday, High Court judge See Kee Oon said it was "among the worst cases of culpable homicide".

But he rejected the prosecution's arguments that the court's "righteous anger" should be invoked to jail Gaiyathiri for life.

"The sentence of the court is not and indeed should not be based on an overriding visceral sense of indignation," he said.

The fact that Gaiyathiri was suffering from psychiatric conditions cannot be ignored, said the judge.

Citing a psychiatric report, the judge said that her mental conditions had caused her to have "increased irritability and anger", and "affected her judgment" in relation to thinking about the consequences of her actions.

Justice See noted that Gaiyathiri had previously employed other domestic helpers, who were not known to have filed any complaints about her having abused or ill-treated them.

She also did not appear to have been a pathologically violent person prior to her offences and was not thought to be at risk of re-offending or to pose a danger to the public, he added.

But the judge did not think the mitigating force of her psychiatric conditions was "so substantial or compelling" as to warrant a sentence of less than 20 years for her culpable homicide offence.

The punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder is life imprisonment and caning, or up to 20 years' jail and a fine or caning.

Gaiyathiri's jail sentence of 30 years included terms given under other charges. She cannot be caned as she is a woman.

Justice See said her culpability for her offences remained high, citing a psychiatric report which stated that she was assessed to be able to control her actions despite having her mental responsibility for her acts partially impaired.

Mental health experts The Sunday Times spoke to said it is extremely rare for people with depression to turn to violence, in the absence of other relevant factors.

They also said that a person with no history of violence who has both depression and OCPD - like Gaiyathiri - would still be unlikely to commit violent acts.

Dr Lim Boon Leng, a psychiatrist with the Dr B.L. Lim Centre for Psychological Wellness, said: "Depression is very rarely associated with violence."

He said other factors, such as a vulnerable victim and a projection of one's negative views onto the victim, were most likely present in Gaiyathiri's case. These may have come together to create the "perfect storm", he said.

Dr Annabelle Chow, principal clinical psychologist at Annabelle Psychology, said other factors could include having poor sleep and an irritable mood owing to depression, and being unable to manage one's anger.

In Gaiyathiri's case, she may have been keeping her anger and frustration in to the point where she was like a pressure cooker ready to explode, said Dr Chow.

An average of 270 reports of physical abuse of maids was made to the police each year between 2017 and last year, the Ministry of Manpower said in response to queries from The Sunday Times.

This is about 0.1 per cent of 250,000 migrant domestic workers here, said Mr Shamsul Kamar, executive director of the Centre for Domestic Employees (CDE), which was set up by the National Trades Union Congress.

He said: "Less than half of the complaints… actually warranted enforcement action after investigations were carried out."

Mr Low Moon Heng, vice-president of the Association of Employment Agencies Singapore, feels that the situation has improved significantly since he joined the industry more than 12 years ago.

He cited current measures in place to protect the welfare of helpers, like mandatory half-yearly medical examinations and interviews by CDE to assess if they are coping well.

Those who commit Penal Code offences against helpers, such as voluntarily causing hurt, can be given twice the maximum penalties under amendments to the code that took effect last year.

Mr Shamsul said that every Singaporean, such as neighbours, can play a part in helping domestic workers.

He said: "Do not adopt the bystander effect when we think somebody (else) will do it… (it is) an endeavour which I think all Singaporeans can own together."