Man jailed 12 years, 6 months for sexually abusing daughter

SINGAPORE — She was just 10 years old when she began suffering from a slew of atrocities at the hands of her own father, from being sodomised to being made to masturbate him.

Her agony lasted for nearly 10 years and she even attempted suicide when she was in secondary school, as her sexual predator came up with “warped” justifications for his actions.

Justice caught up with her tormentor on Monday (July 25), as a High Court sentenced the 51-year-old man to 12 years and six months in prison. He cannot be caned because of his age and cannot be named to protect the victim’s identity.

In sentencing the man, Judicial Commissioner Foo Chee Hock condemned his actions, calling him out for abusing his daughter’s trust in him, and causing “significant harm” to her.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Agnes Chan said that because of the victim’s tender age when he first laid hands on her, she was “completely helpless” in resisting, and this translated to a lack of awareness as to the seriousness of the sexual abuse.

Over the years, her father gave a “perverse and warped” explanation that, as her father, he was entitled to sexually abuse her. 

“He sought to reinforce the ‘rightfulness’ of his sexual behaviour towards her and to restrict her contact with male friends ... He even claimed that he had committed the sexual acts because he did not want other males to touch her body before marriage,” the prosecutor added.

The victim was left “fearful, bewildered and traumatised”, and yet lacked the confidence to discuss the acts until nearly a decade later, Ms Chan said.

The court heard that the first time the man had abused his daughter was in October 2005, after he had picked her up from school one afternoon. Alone at home, he led her into the master bedroom of their Hougang flat and sodomised her.

She initially tried to hold back her tears out of fear, but the pain she suffered caused her to cry out in pain. 

The man stopped his actions, but acted as if nothing had happened as he told her to clean herself up while he went about doing household chores. 

In the days that followed, he continued to think about the incident and decided to abuse his daughter again. In the same month, he committed many other indecent acts against her.

On one occasion, she asked him if all fathers did such acts with their daughters. He was shocked and claimed to regret his actions.

Sometime in 2014, the sexual abuse started again. On the morning of Oct 12, the man, clad only in a towel, entered his daughter’s bedroom and lay beside her in bed. 

She turned her back to him, but he touched her while masturbating himself.

The victim, who was 19 then, cried and decided to move out the following day and go to the police.

In a statement tendered to the court, the victim said: “When I was still staying with my father, my life was under stress and fear. Every night before I sleep, I feared that he would come to me and molest me again. I could not love him and I would never love him because of what he did to me when I was younger ... the constant fear of my safety has led me to thoughts of negativity and I felt I was not pure.”

The court was also told she tried to commit suicide in secondary school.

In mitigation, defence lawyer Gino Singh said a psychiatrist had diagnosed his client as suffering from an acute stress reaction, which he blamed on his wife leaving home around October 2005 because of an extramarital affair.