SINGAPORE — He thought that his eight-year-old stepson was staring at him, so he grabbed the boy by the neck, lifted him up and slammed him down onto a nearby pile of clothes.

When his wife asked what had happened, he replied that the boy was behaving like a gangster.

The 28-year-old man was sentenced to four months’ jail in the State Courts on Tuesday (Sept 10), after pleading guilty to one charge of ill-treatment of a child. He cannot be named due to a court order to protect the boy’s identity.

The court heard that the incident happened on the morning of Dec 3 last year in their home.

While the man was making a drink for himself, he asked the boy, who had looked over at the kitchen area, what he was looking at.

Growing irritated, the man walked over, grabbed the boy with his right hand by the neck and lifted him off the ground.

When his wife shouted at him and the boy’s nine-year-old sister screamed, he slammed the boy down onto the pile of clothes. The boy cried.

He was taken to the KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital where he was found to be uninjured.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Regina Lim told the court that the man was previously sent to a juvenile home twice for theft and driving without a licence.

Asking for at least four months’ jail for his “dangerous actions”, she noted that he could have seriously injured the boy, and it was “only fortuitous” that this did not happen.

The man, who was unrepresented by a lawyer, told the court through an interpreter that he had nothing to say in mitigation.

He could have been jailed for up to four years, or fined up to S$4,000, or both.