SINGAPORE — A 48-year-old man went on trial in the High Court on Wednesday (March 2) over allegations that he sexually assaulted his biological daughter three times between 2012 and 2014.

The Singaporean, who worked as a driver before he was arrested in 2019, cannot be named due to a court gag order to protect the girl’s identity.

She is now aged 16, and was about seven to eight years old at the time of the alleged offences.

Her father is claiming trial to three counts of aggravated sexual assault by penetration. The prosecution has stood down another charge of possessing obscene films for the time being.

The prosecution’s case is that he had first got his daughter to perform a sex act on him in 2012 when she was in Primary 1.

They were in the master bedroom, where the girl’s younger sister was sleeping as well, of their four-room Housing and Development Board flat in the northern region of Singapore. The family had also hired a domestic worker around this time.

The man allegedly showed the girl a pornographic video of a woman performing the same act on a man, before removing his shorts and asking her to do the same for him. She complied.

This purportedly happened again a few weeks later, with the man showing her the same obscene video. He allegedly did this the last time around August 2014, when the girl was in Primary 3.

Deputy Public Prosecutors Selene Yap and Tan Yen Seow said that on each occasion, he told the girl not to tell anyone about what had happened.

In January 2019, the girl told her school counsellor that she felt stressed when her mother’s then-boyfriend threatened to make her stay with her father.

Her parents had divorced in 2014, and her father was no longer living with them.

The girl then lodged a police report a few days later. He was arrested at his home later that evening.

The prosecution will be leading evidence from 18 witnesses during the trial before Justice Audrey Lim.

Their evidence includes a report prepared by a forensic psychiatrist from the Institute of Mental Health, who had examined the accused and stated that he has no mental illness and was not of unsound mind around the time of the alleged offences.

The accused, represented by Mr Vinit Chhabra and Mr Kevin Liew, is disputing two written statements he had made to the police that the prosecution intends to admit as evidence.

On Wednesday, the case’s investigation officer took the stand to testify that he had voluntarily given the statements. The trial continues on Thursday.

If convicted of sexual assault by penetration of a minor under 14, the accused could be jailed for at least eight years and up to 20 years, and given at least 12 strokes of the cane.