By Elena Chong, Court Correspondent
A WOMAN was jailed for 10 months by a Community Court on Wednesday for using a heated knife to burn the arms of her two young children on separate occasions.
The 32-year-old woman, who cannot be named to protect the children's identities, admitted to ill-treating her then seven-year-old daughter in 2008 after she caught her stealing tidbits from a shop.
She also admitted burning the left forearm of her eight-year-old son in March last year.
The court heard that the boy had been selling his school stationery to his friend for money since January last year. When the accused found out two months later, she heated a kitchen knife over the stove for a few minutes at home, and pressed the hot knife onto his left hand, burning his forearm.
A divorcee, the woman had custody of her two children then.
The offences came to light when her ex-husband noticed a swelling on his daughter's left temple on June 12 last year. He took her to KK Women's and Children's Hospital for medical examination and made the report the next day.
The accused, who has since re-married and is now four months pregnant, could have been fined up to $4,000 and/or jailed for up to four years on each charge.