SINGAPORE — Foreign domestic worker Moe Moe Than, 32, was not paid her salary of S$1,450. This was on top of her enduring 11 months of abuse, which included eating her own vomit after being force-fed a mixture of rice and sugar through a funnel.

However, the Myanmar national left Singapore anyway with the understanding that her employer Chia Yun Ling did not pay her because of “mistakes” made at work.

Chia, a mother of three who is now in jail with her husband for abusing their two domestic helpers, disputed this point and said that she had paid Ms Moe Moe Than her salary “in full and in cash".

She said that she had a “savings schedule” where the helper would sign to declare that she had received her salary.

So who is telling the truth?

This was a point of contention at the High Court on Friday (Aug 2), during a hearing for prosecutors to appeal against an acquittal for Chia and a penalty for her husband. 

In March, Chia, 43, a former senior sales manager, and her husband Tay Wee Kiat, 41, a former regional IT manager, were convicted of abusing their helpers after a 33-day trial.

However, District Judge Olivia Low acquitted them of two charges each.

Chia was acquitted of failing to ensure that all outstanding salaries due to Ms Moe Moe Than were paid before her repatriation.

Tay was acquitted of instructing their other helper, Ms Fitriyah, to hit Ms Moe Moe Than. Ms Fitriyah, 34, is Indonesian and goes by one name.

Chia was sentenced to 47 months in jail and Tay got 24 months.

On Friday, the prosecutors sought to raise Tay’s jail sentence by 14 months, pointing out that the punishment for two of his most serious offences should run consecutively and not concurrently.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Kumaresan Gohulabalan told Justice Hoo Sheau Peng that the sentence given “fails to accurately capture the extent of Tay’s depravity”.

Among other things, Tay had made the two helpers slap each other and ordered them to kneel 100 times before a Buddhist altar at home, even though Ms Moe Moe Than is Christian and Ms Fitriyah is Muslim.

CHIA SAID SHE ‘OVERPAID’ HELPER

Chia and Tay had no lawyers and represented themselves during the appeal hearing.

Chia disclosed that they had to discharge their defence counsel, Mr Wee Pan Lee, due to “financial difficulties”.

The court heard that although part of the couple’s penalties was to compensate Ms Moe Moe Than S$9,500 for the abuse she suffered while working for them from Jan 8 to Nov 12 in 2012, they chose to spend more days in jail instead of repaying her.

Presenting her case that she did pay Ms Moe Moe Than her salary, Chia said that she has a record of withdrawing S$1,200 in cash from a bank’s auto-teller machine on Nov 9, 2012 — three days before Ms Than’s repatriation.

She also has 11 signatures showing that the helper had acknowledged receipt of salary paid.

Chia claimed that Ms Moe Moe Than had written a note herself, where she “affirmed” that she had taken all her salary.  

In it, the helper apparently wrote that she would need to go home since she could not follow her employers’ instructions or take care of children.

“I have never forced or threatened (her) to sign an acknowledgement on the payment schedule, or write the handwritten note against her will,” Chia wrote in her submissions to the court.

In tears, she told Justice Hoo: “I did pay her. It is a very simple process… I don’t understand why the prosecutor has made it so difficult for me… No other motive... I don’t understand why this payment process has become so complicated.”

She even said that she had “overpaid” Ms Moe Moe Than by giving her S$1,600 instead of the S$1,450 owed.

'SHE DID NOT KNOW WHAT SHE WAS SIGNING'

DPP Kumaresan, however, asserted that Chia had made the helper sign against the words “received by” when she did not understand what that meant.

“(She) doesn’t know what she was signing,” he said. “She chose to sign it because ‘Madam told me that during the employment, whatever I did wrong, the things I didn’t do correct — deduct. So I didn’t receive any money’.”  

As for the note, he said that the remarks in there were included because they were “entirely dictated by Chia”.

He added that the helper was already fearful of further abuse and was threatened that an assassin would be hired to kill her family members back home.

Should the High Court rule for a reversal of the acquittal, DPP Kumaresan said that the prosecution would seek a three-month jail sentence for Chia and make an order for her to pay the outstanding salary in compensation.

SENTENCES ‘EXTREMELY HEAVY’

Tay, in defending his case, said: “I am (as) equally confused (as my wife)… My humble opinion — if I may put across — is that there shouldn’t be a further (raising of the sentence).”

In his submissions, he urged Justice Hoo “to see that the sentences are extremely heavy”, noting that its deterrence intent is “already well-served”.

“The past lengthy six years plus since the start of the case had been traumatising and devastating for both myself and my spouse,” he added.

“We have since lost our careers, our jobs, our income and savings (for children’s future education), our reputation and health.”

He also said that his 69-year-old father will now have to continue to work as a contractor to support his three children during the time he and his wife are in prison. 

INFLICTED PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PAIN

In response, DPP Kumaresan said that Tay’s acts of abuse were violent and involved the use of a cane, a broomstick and a metal clothing hook, causing Ms Than pain and psychological torment. 

He also said that Tay’s intentional and unrelenting abuse throughout Ms Than’s employment reflected “the lack of regard he had for her as another human being”.

He added that “domestic workers are particularly vulnerable to abuse by their employers and therefore deserve the full protection of the law”.

“Public interest therefore requires that a deterrence sentence be meted out, so that a clear message is sent to the rest of the society that the abuse of domestic workers will not be tolerated.”

Justice Hoo reserved her judgement until Aug 20.