Later, Aliff drove to Jurong East, and picked up Izz's mother, after he alerted her about what happened to her son, who was found lying motionless and cold and stopped breathing.

Aliff took time to clean himself up and brush his teeth, due to his fear of being caught and sent to prison over Izz's death, and also made a detour to discard his mobile phone in some bushes.

He was first charged with voluntarily causing grievous hurt, an offence under Section 325 of the Penal code that attracts the maximum punishment of ten years' imprisonment, with either caning or a fine.

[16] Other than that, the prosecution, consisting of Han Ming Kuang and Lim Shin Hui, highlighted that prior to his "accidental fall" story, Aliff made a first-hand confession of having intentionally caused the boy to suffer head injuries by pushing him against the van floorboard and showed regret for his crime.

Additionally, Dr Gilbert Lau, senior consultant forensic pathologist, testified that based on his post-mortem examination result, Izz's cause of death was traumatic intracranial haemorrhage, or bleeding of the brain as a result of traumatic head injury, and he confirmed that the cause of these injuries was consistent with Aliff's first confession of pushing the baby instead of accidentally dropping him.

Justice Chionh's acceptance of Izz's mother as a credible and truthful witness also shot down Aliff's "baseless" allegations that she gave evidence under police threats to incriminate him.

[25][26] On 11 August 2022, Justice Mavis Chionh, having heard the submissions from both sides, released her judgement and stated that based on the precedent case of Kho Jabing, the death penalty should be strictly imposed in cases of murder where an offender's conduct demonstrated viciousness and/or blatant disregard for human life despite lacking the intention to cause death.

Justice Chionh found that in comparison to Kho's case and several others, Aliff's conduct, on the balance of probabilities, did not deserve the maximum punishment of death.

[27][28] She noted that Aliff did not premeditate or plan to commit the assault on Izz, he also did not make additional moves for the victim to suffer as much as possible, and he had done the assault in a fit of rage and frustration, and while his actions of slamming the baby's head against the van's floorboard was reprehensible, Aliff's level of viciousness was not severe enough to the extent of sparking an outrage of the community's feelings, and his extent of disregard for human life was not sufficiently high to call for the imposition of the death penalty.

Due to this, the trial judge decided to spare Aliff the gallows and opted for the minimum sentence of life sought by both the prosecution and defence.

[30][31] Justice Chionh also stated that it is paramount to convey the courts' "clear message that no caregiver – whether a parent or any individual to whom the welfare of the child has been entrusted – has any licence to inflict violence with impunity on any young children in his or her charge".

Justice Tay, who pronounced the verdict in court, stated that in contrast to Aliff's claim that he was threatened by his interrogators during questioning, evidence showed that Aliff was not coerced by police investigators to change his story and that he admitted at the first instance about intentionally pushing Izz against the floorboard of his new van and causing the injuries on the baby, which in turn led to the death of the baby.

Therefore, they found no basis to overturn the trial judge Mavis Chionh's decision to reject Aliff's defence and convict him of murder.