Maid's accounts of the alleged assaults "appear to be subject to exaggeration": Judge (Representational)
An Indian woman in Singapore has been acquitted of maid abuse after the judge felt that the domestic help was "prone to exaggeration" in her complaints against her employer, a media report said on Friday.
District judge Kenneth Yap, who delivered the judgement after a nine-day trial, said that Rajinder Kaur, 28, had "demonstrated a lack of intention to work in Singapore from the start", The New Paper reported.
Her former employer Madam Singh Manu, 43, was accused of assaulting Kaur on four occasions in January, 2017 in an apartment in the western part of Singapore.
The purported acts included hitting the maid twice, hitting her hand with a knife, pulling her hair and twisting her arm.
Deputy Public Prosecutors Yang Ziliang and Sheryl Yeo had stated that Kaur was a truthful witness who had no reason to fabricate the acts of assault.
But defence lawyer Amarjit Singh Sidhu said Kaur, who is now in India, had made the allegations as she wanted to return home.
The lawyer said Kaur was "irresponsible as a domestic helper" who would at times leave the door to the apartment wide open and forget to turn off the gas switch.
In his brief grounds of decision, Judge Yap noted that in August, 2016, Kaur came here to work and take over her older sister's place as the family's breadwinner.
He said: "Rajinder did not seem to share this sentiment... Even after she arrived, she cried... It required the combined efforts of her sister and the accused to calm her down and convince her to stay on".
The judge said he found her accounts of the alleged assaults to lack clarity and "appear to be subject to exaggeration".
He noted that Kaur had given different accounts on how a knife was purportedly used.
"Rajinder initially said the sharp end of the knife came into contact with the top of her left hand and her skin had come off as a result," the Singapore tabloid quoted the Judge as saying.
She later gave another version, stating it was the flat side of the knife instead and the top part "grazed" her hand.
Judge Yap said a doctor who conducted a medical examination soon after did not record such an injury.