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Father jailed 18.5 years for sexually assaulting his youngest daughter from age 6

SINGAPORE — When she was only six years old, her father would carry her to his bed in the living room and force her to perform sex acts on him, while her two older sisters were asleep.

SINGAPORE — When she was only six years old, her father would carry her to his bed in the living room and force her to perform sex acts on him, while her two older sisters were asleep.

This went on for the next three years, but the girl kept silent as she was afraid her father would hit her and that no one would believe her.

She eventually confided in one of her sisters about the acts.

The father, a 52-year-old former condominium cleaner, was sentenced in the High Court on Monday (March 23) to 18-and-a-half years behind bars. This included half a year’s jail in lieu of 15 strokes of the cane, as offenders above the age of 50 cannot be caned by law.

He was also ordered to pay a S$700 fine for possessing seven films without a valid certificate from the Board of Film Censors.

He pleaded guilty to four charges, including aggravated sexual assault by penetration, consumption of a specified drug, and possessing 91 obscene films. Another eight charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.

The man cannot be named due to a court gag order to protect the victim’s identity.

Prosecutors revealed that he has a long criminal history dating back to 1989, mostly for drug consumption. In 2004, he was also jailed for nine months for propositioning a 14-year-old girl and having sex with her on two occasions.

FEARED THAT PEOPLE WOULD SHUN HER

The court heard that the man sexually assaulted his youngest daughter on multiple occasions from 2015 to 2017.

At the time, he lived in a two-room rental flat with the girl and her two sisters, who were two and four years older than the victim respectively.

His wife did not stay with them as she was a freelance prostitute. In 2017, she was arrested for her prostitution activities and repatriated to Indonesia, leaving the three girls in his care and custody.

He began targeting the girl when she was in kindergarten. Court documents showed that he first molested her in 2015, before engaging in more depraved acts with her.

When she was in Primary 1, he woke her up when she was sleeping with her sisters in their bedroom.

While the other girls were fast asleep, he carried her out to the living room and forced her to perform oral sex on him. She had tried to refuse and did not know what to do.

However, she kept quiet about the sexual abuse “as she feared that no one would believe her, or that people might shun her”, Deputy Public Prosecutor Eunice Lau told the court.

Court documents showed that he sexually assaulted and molested her another eight times, till one of her sisters told her that her own classmate had been sexually assaulted by a neighbour.

After hearing this, the victim decided to tell her sister and her teacher about what had happened. The police were then notified and the father was arrested on July 24, 2018.

When she was examined at the KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, she tested positive for a vaginal infection.

The man also admitted to the police that he took methamphetamine about two to three times a month.

HE DID NOT KNOW ACTIONS CAUSED HURT: LAWYER

DPP Lau sought the sentence imposed, saying that he had committed a gamut of sexual offences against his daughter, and “callously and persistently” abused her.

“Although the victim looked up to the accused as her only parent and primary caregiver, he grossly violated the trust she reposed in him and destroyed the sanctity of their home by abusing her within the confines of its four walls,” the prosecutor added.

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In mitigation, the man’s lawyer Tan Jeh Yaw said that he had been left to raise his family alone when his wife was sent home to Indonesia.

“Because of the stress and financial difficulties he faced, he really did not know the actions were causing hurt to his family,” Mr Tan added.

For sexual assault by penetration of a minor under 14, the father could have been jailed for up to 20 years. The offence also carries at least 12 strokes of the cane.

Related topics

drugs sexual assault obscene film court crime

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