By Khushwant Singh

TO teach her maid a lesson, finance officer Sally Ang Poh Choo used marker pens to draw lines on the Indonesian maid's face.

It was Ang's way of punishing Miss Sri Hartuti Rokiman for not closing the front door properly while she was washing the family's car parked in the front porch of the house in Eastwood Place off Bedok Road.

Miss Sri Hartuti, 26, ran away from her employers the next day and reported the matter to the police.

A doctor found scratches and slight bleeding on her face. The maid had also asked a neighbour and her maid to take photographs of her scratches and bruises.

Ang, 44, a mother of two teenagers, 14 and 16, was jailed three weeks and fined $1,500 on Thursday for hurting her maid on five occasions over a two-month period.

Last month, she pleaded guilty to the charges which included pinching Miss Sri Hartuti and poking her head with a finger on two separate incidents in 2005.

Ang abused her maid for her sloppy work, such as not cleaning the kitchen to her satisfaction and not unfolding a bed cover.

She will start serving her jail term on July 3 as her lawyer Ramesh Chandra told the court she needed a week to settle the payroll payment of her 60 fellow employees.

The company she works for had been unable to find a replacement for her, he said. Mr Ramesh said the offences had occurred a long time ago and Ang regretted her actions and had compensated Miss Sri Hartuti $4,000.

When probed by District Judge Wong Choon Ning why there was a delay in prosecuting Ang, Assistant Public Prosecutor Olivine Lin said the police had 'sat on the case'.

The Attorney-General's Chambers had to ask the police to expedite the matter, she added