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SINGAPORE, Nov 2 (AF) - A Singapore housewife who appealed against a three-month jail term for bashing her maid, has had her sentence tripled instead, the Straits Times reported Friday

In stiffening the sentence, Chief Justice Yong Pung How said violence against maids had to be stopped. Such abuse was giving Singapore "a very terrible reputation" and foreign embassies had complained, he said.

Farida Begam Mohamed Artham, 27, used a slipper and a scrubbing brush handle to beat her 20-year-old Indonesian maid on the stomach, back, shoulders and head because of the way the floor was being cleaned.

It was an "inhumane and abhorrent" assault, deputy public prosecutor Daniel Yong said.

The maid suffered extensive bruising, and after the assault Begam behaved as if nothing was wrong and taught the maid how to scrub the floor properly, he said.

At her trial, Begam claimed the maid had inflicted the bruises on herself.

"Her appalling lack of remorse, coupled with the malicious manner in which she inflicted the injuries on the victim, cry out to the court to once again remind the public that domestic maids in our midst deserve to be treated humanely and with respect," Yong said.

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