Ex-NTU research associate jailed, caned for molesting neighbour’s daughter and niece

SINGAPORE — He was a trusted neighbour with two young boys of his own, and the two families often visited each other’s homes to celebrate birthdays and festive occasions.

But the man betrayed that trust by molesting his neighbour’s four-year-old daughter at least four times over a period of six months. He also molested his niece — his sister’s daughter — when the eight-year-old visited his home during the weekends to see her grandparents.

What the man did were not discovered for more than two years, until the neighbour’s daughter complained to her mother of pain in her genitals before a bath.

For his acts, the former Nanyang Technological University (NTU) research associate, 45, was sentenced to eight years’ jail, and a maximum 24 strokes of the cane on Tuesday (Nov 20)

He cannot be named due to a gag order protecting the identities of his victims, which also included a third girl who was believed to be between six and eight years old at the time of his offence. Her identity remains unknown as he had refused to disclose it, said Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Nicholas Lai.

In sentencing him, District Judge Ng Cheng Thiam said the man had made his victims’ places of play a “danger ground”, and that the acts on his niece amounted to an “abuse of trust in a familial context”.

Furthermore, there was a “significant degree of premeditation” on his part as his modus operandi involved distracting his victims with mobile phone games or getting them to draw, before he molested them under their shorts or skirts, said the judge.

Retribution and deterrence would feature prominently in his sentence, District Judge Ng said, adding that substantial caning was warranted.

On the first day of his trial, the man pleaded guilty to three molest charges, and admitted to another 17 charges that were taken into consideration during sentencing.

The court heard that the offences were committed between August 2014 and Jan 1, 2017 when the girls were entrusted in his care.

During that time, he molested his neighbour’s daughter at least four times, and became emboldened to perform more intrusive acts more frequently.

After he assaulted her on Jan 1, 2017, the four-year-old told her mother that the man had touched her buttocks and rubbed her “pee pee” area, and that she felt pain especially while urinating. She said the man did not stop when she told him not to touch her. The girl did not tell anyone about what he did earlier because she was afraid of getting scolded.

Hours later, the girl was taken to the KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital for a medical examination, and the hospital reported the sexual assault to the police. The man was arrested the next day.

Investigations revealed that the man had also molested his niece on at least three separate occasions, and had done the same to another girl on at least two occasions. He filmed what he did to the two girls as well.

DPP Lai told the court that the man would stop his actions and pretend that nothing had happened whenever the victims fidgeted or told him to stop, but he would try again after some time.

Calling it “emphatically one of the worst cases of its sort”, DPP Lai pointed out that the father-of-two had frequently rubbed his genitals against the bodies of his neighbour’s daughter and his niece to the point that they did not think what he was doing was out of the ordinary, and so did not stop him.

“Essentially, the transgressions fell just one step short of rape,” he added. He urged the court to punish the man by giving him a jail term of at least eight years, instead of the six years that his lawyer, Mr Gurdip Singh, had asked.

The man could have been jailed up to five years for each charge of molesting a minor under the age of 14.