• A Singapore permanent resident pleaded guilty to three charges of statutory rape 
• He admitted to sexually abusing his daughter and her best friend in his condominium unit
• His daughter kept silent as she was afraid her parents would get a divorce
• He was arrested in 2019 after the other girl revealed what had happened
• He will be sentenced on April 19

SINGAPORE — He preyed on his young daughter when his wife was not home, giving in to his paedophilic urges by repeatedly raping and sexually assaulting the girl over seven-and-a-half years.

The girl was aged about three to seven when the Singapore permanent resident began his depraved acts. He showed her pornographic videos, including one of a child having sex with her father.

He also sexually abused his daughter’s best friend, who is from a Southeast Asian country, when she came over to watch television or play. 

His crimes came to light after she revealed what he had done to her during a religious ceremony in her home country.

On Friday (March 26), the 44-year-old man, who was originally from a country in Europe, pleaded guilty to three charges of statutory rape in the High Court.

He cannot be identified because of a court order to protect the victims’ identities. 

High Court judge Mavis Chionh will consider 19 other similar charges for sentencing on April 19. These include sexual assault by penetration and his possession of 296 obscene videos in his electronic devices. 

He has since divorced his wife, who is also a permanent resident. 

They tied the knot in his home country and moved to Singapore, where they lived in two condominium complexes in the northeastern region.

He committed the crimes from around December 2011 to June 2019.

His daughter was a Primary 5 student when he was arrested. 

She got to know her best friend, who was also her schoolmate and lived in the same condominium, in 2016. The friend's parents regarded the man and his wife as close friends.

PAEDOPHILIC TENDENCIES

The court heard that the man first sexually assaulted his daughter in their first residence. 

After watching a TV programme, she became afraid of showering alone.

When he accompanied her to take showers, he developed a sexual desire for the girl, realising he was a paedophile and there was “no turning back”, the prosecution told the court.

The frequency of the sexual acts increased after they moved to their second residence nearby. 

He would target his daughter when his wife was not around. 

The girl told him “no, I don’t want to” the first time he tried to rape her. He told her to “try for a few minutes”, showing her pornography before sexually assaulting her.

She kept silent because she was scared and did not want her parents to divorce.

Once, in 2018, the girl was in her bedroom when he locked the door and told her to have sex with him. Even though she rejected his advances, he persisted and raped her.

She did not stop him as he was her father and did not think she could protest.

On another occasion, they were home with her baby brother and the family’s domestic worker when he locked himself and the girl in her bedroom, showed her adult pornography and raped her again despite her objections.

ONCE ABUSED BOTH GIRLS TOGETHER

Once, when his daughter’s friend came over, he kissed the girl on the lips and told her to keep it a secret. 

This then escalated into a sexual assault against the girl and his daughter while they watched a movie in the master bedroom.

The friend declined to go over again after this in order to avoid him. 

The last time he raped his daughter, on June 29, 2019, his wife was out of the country. 

After the family watched a movie and the domestic helper put the youngest child to bed, the father asked his daughter to go to the master bedroom and violated her after watching a short pornographic video.

By then, her friend had returned to her home country. She was asked to confess her sins during a First Communion ceremony, a frequent rite of passage for Catholic children.

It was then that she revealed that the man sexually assaulted her. Her parents took her to file a police report when she returned to Singapore.

Police officers were summoned to his home on July 1, 2019 and found his daughter alone. He was arrested after they interviewed her.

Prosecutors told the court that by his own estimates, the man had had sex with his daughter “more than 10 times and less than 20 times”, with more instances of oral sex than intercourse.

The authorities discovered numerous obscene films in his devices, many featuring young and prepubescent female children.

Images and links that he had saved in the Twitter mobile application on his phone contained material pertaining to “incest love”, among other subjects.

His wife also told investigators that after he was arrested, she discovered three stories involving child erotica in his email inbox, which he had downloaded and sent to himself.

After his arrest, he was diagnosed with paedophilic disorder. 

A psychiatrist from the Institute of Mental Health found that this had no substantive contributory link to his crimes, since his cognitive functioning and his volitional or emotional capability to break the law in order to act on his sexual desires was not significantly impaired.

He had no other major mental illnesses and was not of unsound mind.

DEPLORABLE ACTS

Deputy public prosecutors Yvonne Poon and Lim Ying Min sought at least 30 years’ jail and the maximum 24 strokes of the cane, describing the man’s acts as “heinous”.

“He utterly abdicated his duties to the victim… and used their closeness to facilitate years and years of abuse,” they said.

However, they noted that the victim still loves her father.

“She tolerated years of abuse despite knowing what the accused did to her was wrong, and disliking it..” they added.

The girl writes letters to her father in remand, telling him that she loves and misses him, the prosecutors said.

The man’s lawyer Amarjit Singh Sidhu argued for 24 to 26 years’ imprisonment.

“He concedes what he did was wrong, it was deplorable,” Mr Singh said.

For each charge of rape of a minor under 14, the man could be jailed for up to 20 years and fined or caned.