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Man jailed 12 and a half years for rape and molest of his daughter

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A 51-year-old man who forced his then 10-year-old daughter to have anal sex and molested her on two other occasions was sentenced in the High Court on Monday (25 July) to 12 and a half years jail for his “vile acts of debauchery”.

The man cannot be named due to a gag order in the case that even his lawyer Gino Hardial Singh has described as “depraved and revolting”.

The prosecution proceeded on one charge of carnal intercourse against the order of nature and two charges of outrage of modesty, with four other charges taken into consideration. The accused, who pleaded guilty to the charges, was spared caning because of his age.

In sentencing the accused, Judicial Commissioner Foo Chee Hock said that the father of three children had committed an “abuse of trust of authority” and caused “significant harm to the young and vulnerable victim”.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Agnes Chan told the court that for the first offence committed in October 2005, the accused had picked up the then 10-year-old victim from her primary school and brought her home to their flat in Hougang. No one else was at home at the time.

The accused asked the victim to come into the master bedroom. Without wearing a condom, he penetrated her for about two to three minutes.

The victim felt intense pain but withheld her tears for fear that the man would scold her. Later, she could not endure the pain anymore and cried, and which point the man stopped his action.

In the same month, the man picked up the victim from her school and brought her home, and again, no one was at home when he committed his second offence. He pulled down her underwear and licked her private parts for around five minutes.

On or about 12 October 2014, the victim, who was by then 19 years old, was sleeping on her bed at home when the man committed his third offence. By that time, the family had moved to another estate.

The man came into the bedroom and lied next to the victim. While on the bed, he hugged the victim, placed his hands into her pants and stroked her private parts. He continued to do so despite the victim’s attempt to resist.

Deeply upset by the incident, the victim cried and left the flat. She made a police report the next day.

In mitigation, Gino said that the accused had expressed deep remorse for his actions. Citing reports by the Institute of Mental Health, Gino said that the accused was under stress when the first offences took place as his wife had left him after she had an affair with another man. For the offence committed in 2014, Gino said that the accused was suffering from depression.

DPP Chan said in court that the accused’s mental state did not excuse his “reprehensible acts against his daughter”. She added that the victim had also suffered in silence.

Given the aggravating factors, the prosecutor called for a strong and deterrent sentence to “reflect society’s condemnation of such vile acts of debauchery and sexual self-indulgence”.