'Prolonged sexual abuse': 6 years’ jail for man who sexually abused daughter 'from a tender age'

SINGAPORE — When his biological daughter was about 15 or 16 years old, the Singaporean man began asking her to perform sexual acts on him.

Despite his daughter's disgust at the suggestion, she complied because she was afraid that he would get angry if she refused, a court heard on Monday (Dec 19).

For years, his heinous acts of incest and molest were kept a secret by the victim, because she did not want her family to lose their breadwinner if she reported him. She also became "accustomed" to the man's sexual requests. 

The offences were uncovered during an unrelated police investigation in 2021, at least five years after the father started asking for sexual favours.

On Monday, the 48-year-old man was sentenced to six years’ jail after pleading guilty to two charges of incest and one charge of outrage of modesty.

He and the daughter cannot be identified due to a court order.

FREQUENT OCCURRENCES

The court heard that the victim's biological mother died when she was six and her father later remarried.

Until late 2019, the victim lived with the man, her stepmother and five younger stepsiblings in Malaysia.

Court documents stated that the man had begun asking her to perform sexual acts on him since around 2016 to 2017, when she was about 15 or 16 years of age.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Delicia Tan said that the victim complied despite feeling disgusted and knowing that the acts were wrong, “as she was afraid that the accused would get angry if she refused”.

At some point, the man also started molesting the victim. These encounters occurred frequently, the prosecution said.

“Over time, the victim became accustomed to the sexual requests by the accused.”

The man's first charge relates to an encounter on Feb 17 in 2019, after the victim moved back to Singapore with her father and a stepbrother to renew her passport. She was 17 at the time.

While sleeping in the living room of an aunt’s house that night, her father decided to lift up her shirt and molest her.

The man’s actions woke the victim up, but this did not stop him. He continued fondling her for about 15 minutes before going to sleep.

BOUGHT SHOES IN EXCHANGE FOR SEX

The second and third charges were for other incidents that occurred sometime during the first half of 2020.

The court heard that the victim was sleeping in her aunt's living room and was awakened when the man performed a sexual act on her.

The victim tried pushing him away, but he continued. She later pulled up her pants and panties and closed her eyes to sleep, court documents stated.

Undeterred when the victim pushed him away, the offender persisted in nudging her to engage in another sexual act, to which she complied.

On another occasion also during the first half of 2020, the victim told the man that she wanted to buy shoes, to which he replied “wait and see how”.

The man then took a shower and lay naked on the bed, called the victim to the room, and told her to close the door and perform a sexual act on him.

“The accused also said to the victim words to the effect of ‘You are my child, right, come here and help me’ and told the victim that they will go shopping later,” DPP Tan said.

They both headed out later that day to buy shoes for the victim.

She kept these incidents to herself until late 2020 when she told her boyfriend about them.

She did not tell anyone else because she was embarrassed and was also not close to her stepmother. She was worried about her family’s well-being should she report her father, who was the sole breadwinner of the family, court documents said.

The offences came to light when the victim told the police in an unrelated investigation that she did not wish to stay with the man because of the sexual encounters with him. The man was later arrested.

Court documents did not give the details of this unrelated investigation.

ENDURED 'PROLONGED SEXUAL ABUSE'

The prosecution sought a prison term from three years to three years and six months for each incest offence.

They also sought a jail term of 10 to 12 months for the outrage of modesty charge to run concurrently with the other terms.

The prosecution pointed to the “prolonged sexual abuse from the tender age of 15 to 16” that the victim had to endure “from the sole surviving biological family member” as an aggravating factor.

The man's defence counsel said in mitigation that the victim had expressed forgiveness for the man, but the prosecution countered that no supporting evidence stating this was submitted.

In any case, a victim’s forgiveness should not be taken into consideration as a mitigating factor unless in exceptional situations, the prosecution added.

For each count of incest, the man could have been jailed for up to five years. 

For use of criminal force to outrage modesty, he could have been jailed for up to three years, caned, fined or given a combination of any of the three penalties.