As insane is it may sound, back in 1999, a 32 year old mother killed her 3 children and only got 4 years jail sentence. Yes, just 4 years! It is really disgusting to think that the lives of the 3 innocent and helpless children, ages 4, 2 and 9 months old were given almost zero value at all. Her lawyer used the defence of “diminished responsibility” to lessen the punishment for her crime. It turned out that two, not one, but two psychiatrists evaluated her and confirmed that she was suffering from “major depressive syndrome with borderline abnormality” hence was mentally impaired when she stabbed her children in their sleep. They even went on to say that she will be no danger to society once she goes out of prison. Why? Because she just killed her own kids, and since she already killed all her kids, she has no more kids to kill, thus she is now harmless (say whaaat?).

I am not going to dispute the “diminished responsibility” defence, perhaps she is really clinically insane. But 4 years? Seriously? And can insanity be selective? Like she was only insane in the presence of her husband and kids and not around other people? Am I the only one here who thinks that this is outrageous?

So, what had actually driven her insane? Hailing from Sarawak, Miss S is a Muslim convert who, in 1994, married a Brunei fireman and settled with her husband at the fire brigade barrack in Seria. Three years into their marriage, her husband had taken a fancy to alcohol and meth, thus began her hell on earth. Her husband started to become violent on her and their children, punching, slapping, strangling them as he pleased. In early 1999, the husband hit and smashed a liquor bottle on her head (Ouch!). There was another time when the husband sent a knife flying which landed on her foot (Ouuccch!).

These are part of the sappy story about her life told to the judge at her trial in building the diminished responsibility defence. She never made any police report about these attacks, neither did she ever immediately gone to the hospital to get medical attention after each claimed attack (to get stitches perhaps?). Since all her children are dead (she killed them, remember?), no one can verify if the attacks had really happened. It was pretty much her words against her husband. Whether the allegations were true or not, the defence used that as the basis for the “severe stress” that she was suffering which eventually triggered her murderous rampage on the midnight of 28 July 1999.