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The mothers had entrusted their young daughters with the independent nanny, a registered nurse who was herself a divorced mother of two teenage daughters.
But the court heard that when their unrelated girls were collected from Sa’adiah Jamari’s home separately in late 2016, the babies were unusually sleepy and unresponsive.
The youngest baby, who was five months old, appeared “in a bad mood” and had swollen eyelids, while the oldest baby, who was 11 months old at the time, was unable to walk, the mothers testified.
After taking the babies to different hospitals, they discovered that they had been administered a variety of medications, including some used to treat insomnia and anxiety.
POISON
Sa’adiah, who was convicted in October of poisoning the two girls, was jailed yesterday for seven years on two counts of causing harm with poison.
The 39-year-old woman maintains her innocence and appeals both against her conviction and against the sentence. She is out on bail of $ 20,000.
District Judge John Ng said the two victims were “helpless babies totally dependent on their caregivers.”
They and their mothers cannot be named to protect their identities.
The judge said Sa’adiah showed no remorse for the serious crimes, adding that the nature of the drugs administered had put the babies’ lives at risk.
He also pointed out that Sa’adiah’s psychiatric disorders, which the lawyers had cited, had no causal link to his crime.
The 29-year-old mother of the youngest girl had testified during the trial that she posted an ad on Facebook in October 2016 because she needed a babysitter for her baby and her oldest daughter, who was then five years old.
Sa’adiah responded and began caring for the girls in early November after the mother visited her Hougang flat and deemed it “adequate.”
But later that month, the mother noticed that something was wrong and took the baby to KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH), where the girl was found to be fine.
After the eighth and final babysitting session the following month, the mother noticed that her son was very sleepy, so she took her to Parkway East Hospital.
The baby was protected for about five days and was found to have multiple substances in his body, including alprazolam, which is used to treat anxiety and more commonly known as Xanax, chlorpheniramine, found in allergy medications, and zolpidem. , which helps you sleep.
The mother of the other baby, 22, testified that Sa’adiah had responded to her Facebook post looking for a babysitter on Christmas night.
But after she and her boyfriend picked up their baby from Sa’adiah’s apartment the next morning, the girl was sleepy and unresponsive.
Several drugs, including alprazolam, were found in the baby’s urine after she entered the KKH.
During the trial, the court heard that some of the drugs were found in Sa’adiah’s home and that she had prescriptions for some of them.
Sa’adiah’s attorneys yesterday asked for no more than two years in jail, noting her contributions as a nurse, including her role in the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome.
AGGRAVATING
But Deputy Prosecutor Yan Jiakang said the fact that Sa’adiah was a nurse could be seen as an aggravating factor, as she would have known about the effects of the drugs and yet continued to administer them to the two babies without close supervision. .
For each count of administering poison with intent to cause harm, Sa’adiah could have been imprisoned for up to 10 years and / or fined. She cannot be spanked because she is a woman.
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