Father of 7 subjected children to 'horrific' abuse, raped 3 daughters
SINGAPORE — A father of seven subjected five of his children to horrific abuse over a span of 14 years, even raping three of his daughters.
The 45-year-old man also ill-treated his own blood by denying them food and assaulting them.
He pleaded guilty to seven charges in the High Court on Monday (7 March), including aggravated rape, aggravated sexual assault by penetration, aggravated molest and ill-treating a child.
All these charges were for offences committed against one daughter, who was around 10 when the offences began. She is now 16.
Another 26 charges which will be taken into consideration for his sentencing are for offences against the other four children and the man’s wife, 41. These include instigating his wife to persuade their daughter to provide false information to the police to exculpate him from the sexual offences, and assaulting his wife.
Sentencing has been adjourned to a later date.
The man is a freelance camp instructor for children’s adventure camps.
Of his seven children, a son, 23 and a daughter, 24, are from a previous marriage. He has five children with his current wife. These comprise four girls - including the daughter from the proceeded charges - who are aged from 12 to 19, and a 15-year-old boy.
None of the parties can be named to protect the identities of the victims.
Showed daughter pornography, raped her
From 2008, the man lived with his wife and seven children at a flat in Ang Mo Kio before moving to a flat in the Canberra district in November 2017.
The sexual abuse against the main victim occurred from 2016, when the girl was in Primary 5. He showed her a pornographic video depicting a man and a girl in sexual acts. He told her that the girl was also in Primary 5, while the man was her father.
Between 2016 and 2018, the man sexually abused this daughter, usually at night when his wife was away at work. In 2017, he brought her to visit the Canberra flat, which was still under renovation, and asked her to shower with him. He then spread newspapers on the floor and sexually assaulted her, despite her pain.
From 2018, the man threatened to pull her from school if she did not have sex with him everyday. This scared the girl, who thought that she would be abused by him more if she stayed at home.
Despite her protests, the girl did not resist her father for fear of retaliation, and did not tell anyone about the acts as she feared that nobody would believe her, or that she would be sent away. The man also made her promise to keep mum.
Conducted "body checks" on 3 teen daughters
In 2018, the man also conducted “body checks” on this girl, then between 12 and 13, and her two sisters, then aged 14 to 16 years old.
He engaged in a sexual act with the youngest girl, under the pretext of cleaning her genitals, before taking a photo of her genitals. He then showed each of the three girls the photo he took, and instructed them on “how to clean” up properly after their periods. He then deleted the photo in their presence.
He repeated the same act that year, also ostensibly to teach the girls how to clean themselves properly.
The man also sexually assaulted the main victim in the master bedroom toilet on the night of 16 November 2018. Her two older sisters then asked her what had happened, as they found it strange that she had showered in the master bedroom toilet.
Breaking into tears, the girl confided in her siblings about the sexual abuse. One sister convinced the girl to lodge a police report and they decided to go to a police station far away, so that they would not be found by the man.
They left after midnight on 17 November 2018 on the pretext of throwing rubbish but took a Grab car to Bedok where the victim lodged a police report. She was conveyed to hospital where she stayed for a week, before moving to a children’s home for two weeks.
The man tried to find his two daughters at three different police stations after they left, but could not find them. On the morning of 17 November 2018, he surfed ten different websites on how to pass a lie detector test, including a wikiHow article on “4 Simple Ways to Cheat a Polygraph test (Lie Detector)” as well as another on “You can fool a lie detector test with just one simple movement - and get away with it”.
The man was arrested on 1.40pm that day. He was assessed psychiatrically and found to be mentally sound and without sexual perversions.
Denied 4 children food for 4 days
On 1 September 2018, angry at two of his daughters for bringing their two younger siblings - including the main victim - to the playground before they finished their chores, the man denied the four children food for the next four days. He threw away all the food in the house and forbade his wife from cooking.
He would bring the rest of the family not under punishment to dine out, while tying the large bottles of water in the refrigerator with rubber bands so that his children could not drink from them. He then cut the electricity to his house so that the children had to fan themselves with paper when it got warm.
Over the next four days, the four children lived on tap water and food smuggled to them, such as packets of chicken rice from their mother, who also hid biscuits and potato chips in their letterbox.
Once, the siblings’ elder half sister tried to smuggle food to them but her father found out and threw the food away. On 6 September, the father finally allowed the four children to eat plain rice as it was one of their birthdays. The four began eating normally the next day onwards.
'Chillingly brazen' acts
The prosecution sought a jail term of 32 years and 24 strokes of the cane for the man.
“The accused’s actions were also chillingly brazen; he abused each of his four daughters repeatedly, sometimes even when her siblings were right outside the room. Such was his faith in the power he wielded over them and she belief in his own impunity,” said Deputy Public Prosecutors Muhamad Imaduddien, Angela Ang and Sarah Siaw.
Alluding to the three daughters who detailed their ordeals in victim impact statements, the prosecution said, “It would be clear that despite the cessation of the assaults since the accused’s arrest, all three victims continue to experience nightmares of their assault and cannot help but to distrust men in general. The loss of their innocence and childhood is one that can never be reversed.”
They added, “It is difficult to imagine a worse perversion of the parent-child relationship than what happened in the accused’s family… Had he not been arrested, his fifth and youngest daughter - who was only nine years old at that time - may well have fallen victim too.”
The man's pro bono lawyer Ng Pei Qi sought a sentence of between 26 and 28 years.
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