Fatal maid abuse: Trial of policeman employer adjourned for more evidence to be prepared
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Kevin Chelvam (left) was the registered employer of Myanmar national Piang Ngaih Don, 24, who died following prolonged and heinous abuse while under his employment.
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SINGAPORE - The trial of staff sergeant Kevin Chelvam
On Wednesday, with the trial into its ninth day, the prosecution said it needed more time to prepare closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage and a log sheet of movements for the last two weeks leading up to the death of Ms Piang Ngaih Don.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Stephanie Koh said she estimated that the log sheet and footage should be ready around the middle of October, or the prosecution would at least be able to update the court on the progress by then.
Chelvam’s lawyer Pratap Kishan asked that the prosecution send the defence the log once it is ready, so it can go through the additional evidence before the next pre-trial conference.
District Judge Teoh Ai Lin then adjourned the trial, fixing the next court date on Oct 18.
Chelvam ,
She had weighed only 24kg when she died, compared with just over a year before in May 2015 when she was 39kg.
Chelvam, who was suspended from the police force in August 2016, had claimed trial to four charges, including one charge of voluntarily causing hurt and another charge of abetment of voluntarily causing grievous hurt to Ms Piang Ngaih Don by starvation.
He is also contesting one charge of giving false information to a police officer and another of removing CCTV cameras – which recorded the abuse – from his home.
His former wife, Gaiyathiri Murugayan, 43, was sentenced in June 2021 to 30 years in prison
Prema S. Naraynasamy, 64, who joined her daughter Gaiyathiri in torturing the maid, was sentenced to 14 years in jail in January.
Prema was given three more years in jail in June after admitting to one charge of instigating Chelvam to cause evidence of the offences in their Bishan flat to disappear, bringing her total jail term to 17 years.
Chelvam and Gaiyathiri have two children, aged one and four at the time, and the pair divorced in 2020.
About a dozen witnesses have taken the stand during Chelvam’s trial, including the doctor who declared Ms Piang Ngaih Don dead, a pathologist who performed the autopsy, Prema and Gaiyathiri.
Dr Grace Kwan, who had made a house call at Chelvam’s Bishan flat on the day Ms Piang Ngaih Don died, testified that the maid appeared to be severely emaciated, with limbs looking like they were just skin wrapping bone.
Dr George Paul, the doctor who had performed the autopsy on Ms Piang Ngaih Don, testified that the maid had a body mass index similar to someone suffering from advanced cancer or from extensive and widespread tuberculosis,
Prema testified that Chelvam had been aware of the abuse.
When it came time for Gaiyathiri to testify, the prosecution played CCTV footage from the flat showing Chelvam picking Ms Piang Ngaih Don up by her hair and dropping her to the floor.
Gaiyathiri said that Chelvam had hurt the maid about a month before her death.
When Gaiyathiri was previously on trial, footage played in court showed her pouring cold water on Ms Piang Ngaih Don and slapping, pushing, punching, kicking and stomping on the maid while she was on the ground.
She also hit the domestic worker with objects such as a plastic bottle and metal ladle, and pressed a heated steam iron to the maid’s forearm.
The court was told then that Ms Piang Ngaih Don’s meals often consisted of sliced bread soaked in water, cold food straight from the refrigerator or some rice at night.
At the start of Chelvam’s trial, DPP Koh had said that while Chelvam did not participate in the fatal assault, he was aware that the maid was physically abused by Gaiyathiri and Prema on a regular basis, and that her physical condition had deteriorated as a result.
DPP Koh said: “His guilty knowledge of the deceased’s starvation will allow this court to infer that he made a conscious choice not to intervene and hence abetted Gaiyathiri by illegal omission.”
Chelvam is currently out on $15,000 bail. His attendance for the next court date on Oct 18 has been dispensed with.
