Woman, 39, punches & threatens mum with penknife over household chores, gets 10 weeks' jail

While arguing over household chores at home, a 39-year-old woman punched and slapped her mother in the face.

She also threatened her 59-year-old mother with a penknife, and later reached for a knife in the kitchen, according to court documents seen by Mothership.

The incident happened on Oct. 10, and the daughter was arrested four days later.

On Dec. 16, she was sentenced in court to 10 weeks in prison, backdated to the date of her arrest, Oct. 14.

Both women cannot be named as the mother is protected under Section 63B of the Women’s Charter, and any information leading to her identification cannot be disclosed.

History of family violence

The mother had previously applied for a personal protection order against her daughter, and it was granted by a judge in 2014.

Under this order, the daughter was restrained from using family violence against the mother.

At the time of the incident, the mother and daughter had been in frequent contact.

They lived together at the mother's apartment, as it was near the daughter's son's school.

The mother would sometimes help to look after her daughter's two children, who were both in the apartment during the incident.

The daughter had also invited a friend over to the house, who witnessed the incident.

The argument

Investigations revealed that before the incident, the daughter had consumed alcohol twice at home, at 9:30pm the night before, then at about 7am before going to bed.

At about 1pm on Oct. 10, the pair started arguing about household chores in the living room area, while the daughter's children were in the bedroom.

As the quarrel got increasingly heated, the mother asked the daughter to stop arguing with her.

The daughter responded by advancing towards the mother, and punching her in the face once, then slapping her twice.

She picked up a penknife and, without drawing the blade, placed its tip on her mother's chest.

The mother, who was in pain at the time, did not further engage the daughter.

Shortly, the daughter put the penknife down and went into the kitchen.

The mother saw her reach for a kitchen knife, which alarmed her. She ran out of the house and called the police from a neighbour's house.

The daughter faced four charges in total.

On Dec. 16, she pleaded guilty to two of them — criminal intimidation, and voluntarily causing hurt to someone she was in a close relationship with.

The other two charges, which included breaching the personal protection order, were taken into consideration during sentencing.

Prosecution's argument

The prosecution called for the daughter to be imprisoned for a total of 10 to 12 weeks for both charges.

They said that she was also traced for several violent offences.

She had previously been sentenced to eight weeks’ jail for voluntarily causing hurt with a dangerous weapon, and one week in jail for voluntarily causing hurt to her mother in 2021.

Additionally, while the prosecution categorised the hurt caused to be low, they highlighted that the daughter had "attacked the victim relentlessly" at her face, a vulnerable part of her body.

Psychiatric assessment

After the daughter was arrested on Oct. 14, she was remanded in the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) for a psychiatric assessment.

She was still in remand there as of Dec. 15.

The report from IMH, cited by the prosecution, showed that the daughter has conduct disorder and adjustment disorder.

However, the report said that she was not of unsound mind at the time of the offences.

It added that she has trouble regulating her emotions, and had defaulted on previous psychotherapy sessions.

Regarding the influence of the alcohol the daughter had drunk, the report stated that she has had no difficulties in carrying out her day-to-day activities despite drinking similar amounts of alcohol on previous occasions.

The prosecution thus argued that her alcohol intoxication at the time of the incident should not be considered a mitigating factor.

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