By Andre Yeo

SHE had started working for the family less than a month ago.

Everything seemed fine, they said.

Then, she snapped.

For reasons still unknown to the family, the Indonesian maid allegedly attacked her employer's elderly mother, who was looking after three toddlers at home.

Yesterday evening at about 6pm, the members of the Tan household at Block 118 Bedok North Street 2 were left shaken and traumatised.

Their 23-year-old maid had allegedly bashed the grandmother on the head with a metal dustbin.

She then allegedly changed into her employer's white shirt and blue pants and left home.

She is believed to be still on the run.

Eyewitnesses told The New Paper how they were alerted to shouts of help from a window of the five-room flat.

They were stunned to see an elderly lady with blood streaming down her face waving frantically for help, shouting that someone was trying to kill her.

When The New Paper visited the unit last night, the Tan family was still visibly shaken. The granny was taken to Changi General Hospital after the incident.

Ironically, their block is across the road from the Bedok Police Divisional HQ.

The family declined to reveal their full names, but an elderly relative said the maid had just joined the family less than a month ago and everything seemed fine.

She declined to let us in and spoke to us through a gap in the partially open door, with its chain firmly in place.

She said: 'The maid has the key. We are afraid she will come back. We have bought a new lock (after this incident).'

She said the maid was at home with the victim and her three grandchildren, sisters aged 1, 3 and 5 years old. Said the relative: 'She (the victim) was ironing and the maid said she wanted to go to the toilet.

Metal dustbin

'Then, she took a metal dustbin and hit her on the head with it. She then changed into the children's mother's clothes and left.'

Several neighbours and passers-by came to the rescue of the family when they heard the grandmother's cries for help.

Estate agent William Tan, 65, said he was sitting in the void deck of the block with a group of friends waiting for his wife, Madam Jennifer Ang, 59, a senior staff nurse at Bedok Polyclinic, to return home so they could have dinner in the area.

That was when he heard a woman screaming for help. He said: 'We heard someone shouting in Mandarin, 'Uncle! Uncle! Please help me! Someone is trying to kill me!'

'I went to the field to take a look and saw the lady bleeding from the head down. Her arms were also bloodied. I was quite perturbed and was thinking of whether to go up to help her because I could hear children crying.

'I was very disturbed because lives were at stake.'

He said he called for the police, and an ambulance from the Singapore Civil Defence Force was the first to arrive.

Unlocked

He and his wife went up with the paramedics to the unit and found the door unlocked. He saw the grandmother sitting in a corner of the hall cuddling the eldest child, who was crying.

Said Mr Tan: 'The flat was quite dim and the clothes were all over the place. My wife helped to look after the kids while the paramedics were dressing her (victim) up.

'The paramedics looked around the flat and the maid was not around. The lady said the maid had hit her.'

The man the injured woman was calling out to was sales manager Beins Wayne Francisco, 24.

He was waiting for his girlfriend who was giving tuition in the next block.

He said he was just standing around when he heard a woman calling, 'Uncle! Uncle!'

He said: 'I ignored her and walked away because I am not an 'uncle'. I did not think it was me.

'When she started calling and calling and I looked around and there was no else one around, I knew she was calling me.'

He said her head and right arm were covered with blood and she was moving from one window to another to get his attention.

He too called the police and saw her being taken on a stretcher into the ambulance.

He said: 'I did not think it was a really big thing until I saw the blood. I don't know if her dress was white, then turned red. It looked red to me because of all the blood. Blood was all over her face.'

Neighbours said the family had just moved in about two months ago and they had recently completed renovation work on the flat.

An SCDF spokesman said the ambulance took the victim to Changi General Hospital.

A police spokesman said they received a call at about 6.20pm of an injured woman at the unit suffering from head injuries.

Police are investigating.

This story was first published in The New Paper on Oct 24, 2008.