“This is one of the most heinous cases of sexual assault of a child that this court has ever seen,” say prosecutors.

SINGAPORE: A 47-year-old man was sentenced to 34 years’ jail and 24 strokes of the cane on Monday (Feb 26) for sexually assaulting and raping his mistress’ young daughter.

It went on for seven years. The victim, now 15, said “sex with (the accused) was a daily thing”.



Afraid to reject the accused and antagonise him, the girl endured abuse from the time she was seven years old (in 2010) until she finally made a police report in 2016, aged 13.

“This is one of the most heinous cases of sexual assault of a child that this court has ever seen,” prosecutors said.

They described a child so “conditioned” to abuse that she would “automatically undress herself” whenever the accused suggested they go into the bedroom.

The victim’s mother knew that the man had sex with her daughter regularly, but did nothing to stop it, the High Court heard.



Instead, the woman, who worked as a cook, gave her unemployed lover a monthly allowance to support him.

The accused, who cannot be named to protect the victim’s identity, pleaded guilty on Monday to four charges of rape. Another 21 charges were taken into account during sentencing.

VICTIM TREATED RAPIST LIKE A FATHER

The accused and the victim’s mother, referred to in court documents as “J”, started an affair in 2006, when the victim was four years old.

Until then, she had grown up without a father. “She enjoyed spending time with the accused and treated him as a fatherly figure,” Deputy Public Prosecutors David Khoo and Chee Ee Ling said.

In 2010, the accused offered to take care of the victim – then seven years old – during the school holidays in June and December while her mother worked.

The mother agreed. From 2010 to 2014, the child moved into the man’s flat in Clementi, where his wife and son also lived.

During this time, the accused would watch pornographic films in front of the victim and sexually assault her whenever they were alone at home.

He would not stop, even as the child begged and complained of “tearing pain”.

She told her mother, but the woman did nothing to stop it. “She eventually stopped confiding in her mother. It was futile. Her mother would get angry with her and did not intervene,” the prosecutor said.

At seven, the child did not know what the accused was doing to her, but did not like it because it was painful. She only realised what he had done to her years later, when she attended a sex education class in Primary 5, aged 10.

However, unable to rely on her mother and unsure of who else she could confide in, the child stayed silent.

ACCUSED TURNED VIOLENT IF VICTIM REFUSED HIM

In 2014, the victim and her mother moved into the accused’s Clementi flat to live with him and his wife and son. The accused claimed this arrangement would allow him to “take care” of mother and daughter, and to “better discipline” the child, the court heard.

As he had been unemployed since 2010, the accused’s wife was the sole breadwinner of the family. J, the victim’s mother, occasionally contributed S$350 per month towards household expenses.

Before the move, the accused had only sexually assaulted the child. After that, he “quickly progressed (to raping her),” prosecutors said.

“Despite having two women – his wife and his mistress – at his ‘disposal,’ his sexual appetite could not be quenched … he started to rape (the child)," prosecutors added.

The court heard that at first, the accused raped the victim only when they were alone at home or late at night, when everyone else was asleep.

But he soon grew brazen. For example, in June 2016, he asked the victim – in front of her mother – to have a shower with him. The victim, then 13, complied. Her mother did not intervene.

If the girl so much as “appeared unwilling”, the man would “get angry and cause trouble for J, and find fault with everyone in the family,” the prosecution said. Prone to violent outbursts, the accused would throw things around the house and assault his wife and J by punching and kicking them.

He also installed a tracking device on the phones of his wife and the victim, so he could keep tabs on their whereabouts and listen in to their conversations. “The members of the household lived in fear of the accused due to his violent and controlling personality,” prosecutors said.

The man’s wife left him in 2016, with their son in tow. Now a family of three, they moved back into J’s Clementi West flat, which she owned.

It was in this flat that the accused raped the victim for the final time.

VICTIM’S MOTHER GAVE HIM MONEY, ACCUSED WENT ON THE RUN

On Jun 27, 2016, the accused started to pester the victim for sex once she got home from netball training. Tired, she refused. The accused harassed her until she undressed, afraid to antagonise him.

Two days later, she sought help from the man’s ex-wife, who referred her to a social worker. A police report was lodged on Jun 29.

When J informed the man that the police were looking for him, he confessed to having sex with her daughter, but claimed it was to “exact revenge on (his ex-wife and J) for gossiping about him”.

J gave him S$800, and he spent four days on the run before turning himself in on Jul 4.

“THE CHILD SEDUCED ME”: ACCUSED

In five separate statements to the police following his arrest, the accused sought to blame the victim for allegedly seducing him.

He claimed the child was “sexually experienced”, “had a large sexual appetite”, and “did not behave like a virgin”, accusing her of seducing him by “eating ice cream or bananas in a provocative manner,” the High Court heard.

A psychiatric assessment found that the accused does not suffer from any mental illness.

Prosecutors urged the High Court to sentence the accused to 34 years’ jail and 24 strokes of the cane for “wrecking (the victim’s) life”.

She feels ashamed and insecure, finds it hard to trust people and still suffers flashbacks of the abuse.

“The victim’s relationship with her mother has also suffered greatly because of the accused’s actions. She misses her mother,” the prosecution told the court. The teenager now lives with her maternal grandmother.

J visits the accused in prison every week, the High Court heard. She has not seen her daughter in a long time.