SINGAPORE: A 50-year-old man was jailed on Wednesday (Jan 22) after he sexually assaulted his daughter while intoxicated and forced her to perform oral sex on him.
The man, who was the teenager's biological father, was sentenced to 10 years' jail with an additional 4 months' jail in lieu of caning due to his age.
AdvertisementAdvertisementThe victim, an only child, was 15 and lived with her parents in a flat at the time of the offence which occurred in late 2016.
She and her father were "very close" before the offence occurred, the court heard.
The victim would usually share the sole bedroom with her mother as part of the family's sleeping arrangement, while the man would sleep on a sofa bed in the living room, Deputy Public Prosecutors Xin Ying and Eugene Teh said in the statement of facts.
On the night the offence occurred, the victim accompanied her father to drink at a nearby void deck where she drank one can of beer. The man drank two to three cans of beer and subsequently became intoxicated.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAfter drinking, they went home, where the victim lay down on the sofa bed as she did not want to disturb her mother, who was already sleeping inside the bedroom, the prosecution said in its statement.
The man then joined her on the sofa bed, where she asked him to lull her to sleep - this was a frequent occurrence, and he normally did so by patting her thigh or arm in the presence of her mother.
However, on this occasion, the man slipped his hand under her t-shirt and rubbed her waist intimately. She sensed something was amiss and asked him what he was trying to do, while instinctively moving away from him.
VICTIM STRUGGLED
The victim told the man not to come close to her, but he pulled her, pinned her down and tried to kiss her. He also repeatedly told her to keep quiet as she protested, nearly falling off the sofa bed as she struggled and attempted to get away from him, the prosecution said.
The man eventually slipped his hands into the victim's shorts and at that point she began to fear that he would rape her.
After the man removed his hand from her shorts, he then exposed his penis and told her to "do it" for him, which she understood as a request for her to perform oral sex on him.
The victim continued to protest, but the man held her down and forced her to perform oral sex on him.
The teenager who was in shock, remained in the living room overnight, as she did not want to alert her mother. She did not inform her mother of the incident as well for fear of sparking a confrontation between her parents who had frequent disputes, the prosecution said in its statement.
The victim wanted her parents to remain together, and was mindful that informing her mother of the incident would likely cause them to break up, the prosecution said.
The next day, the man asked the victim whether "it was nice" and if she "enjoyed" the night before. She rebuked him and told him that he should not have behaved in their manner, as they were father and daughter.
REPORTING THE OFFENCE
In March 2017, the man threatened the victim with a knife in a familial dispute. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Family Development (MSF) intervened and placed her in a welfare home.
There, the victim found out that she was not alone in having experienced such an ordeal, as some of her hostel mates at the welfare home had also been the victims of sexual assault.
During the victim's home leave sometime in 2017, the man brought up the sexual assault, and asked her if she knew what would happen if she were to inform her Child Protection Officer (CPO) about the incident. The victim replied in the affirmative, but said nothing else.
On Jan 21, 2018, the victim informed her mother about the sexual assault. Her mother was shocked after finding out about the incident, and informed the victim's CPO.
The victim then lodged a police report against the man on Jan 23, 2018, and the police arrested him the next day. He has been in remand since Jan 25, 2018.
Prosecutors asked for at least 11 years' jail and an additional four months' jail in lieu of caning, noting that the man "exhibited no qualms in abusing the trust" that the victim had in him.
The prosecutors also noted that the victim was in an "exceptionally vulnerable position" due to her relationship with him, and that although he pled guilty, his offending was "exacerbated by an element of persistence and an abject absence of remorse in the immediate aftermath of the offence".
For his crime of sexual assault, the man could have been jailed for up to 20 years, and fined or caned.
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