Man gets 24 years’ jail for raping neighbour’s 11-year-old daughter
Photo: Reuters
SINGAPORE — She lived next door to him all her life and regarded him as her godfather.
But he abused that trust by raping and sexually assaulting the 11-year-old over a period of five months at multi-storey carparks, as well as the staircase landing of their block of flats in Bukit Batok.
For that, a 53-year-old former private chauffeur was sentenced to 24 years’ jail by a High Court judge on Monday (March 5). He cannot be caned as he is above 50 years old.
The man pleaded guilty to four charges of aggravated statutory rape and aggravated sexual assault by penetration, with five other similar charges taken into consideration for sentencing. The victim, who is now 19, cannot be named due to a court order.
The court heard that the man and his wife, who had no children of their own, were close family friends with the girl’s family as they were neighbours. The couple often played with the girl and took her to outings. He also showered her with gifts — including perfume and an MP3 player — and even paid for some of her tuition lessons.
In August 2010, upon learning that she was infatuated with someone called “Charles” on Facebook, he lied to her, saying he drove for a Caucasian man whose children went to the same school as “Charles” and he could pass messages to him for her. He would often talk about “Charles” with her to get close to her. She had never met “Charles” in person, and his identity remains unknown.
One day, when the girl was at his flat and his wife was cooking in the kitchen, he took the girl to the highest floor of their block, where he sexually assaulted her with his fingers. He also told her it was not a crime for him to do so. When she told him to stop, he did and warned her not to tell anyone what happened.
Sometime in October that year, as she was walking to a tuition centre to attend her classes, the man approached her and brought her to his car. He then drove her to a higher floor of the multi-storey carpark nearby, sat beside her, and told her that “Charles” had been injured.
When she got upset, he consoled her and said “Charles” was okay, before proceeding to have sex with her. After they were done, he told her to act normally and not to tell anyone what had happened.
Subsequently, he had sex with her at least three more times at another multi-storey carpark nearby.
In January 2011, while she was at school, she began crying. She was taken to see the school counsellor, who reported the matter to the principal upon discovering what had happened. The girl’s elder brother then filed a police report against the man.
Before the police could get to him, the man fled to Johor Baru and married another woman.
About five years later, in July 2016, his Singaporean wife saw him by chance at a temple in Johor Baru along with his Malaysian wife and confronted him.
He was subsequently arrested by the Malaysian police and served a jail sentence in Malaysia for immigration sentences. He was then repatriated back to Singapore in September and arrested.
Asking for at least 21 years’ imprisonment, Deputy Public Prosecutors Kavita Uthrapathy and James Chew said the man had “exploited the victim’s infatuation with ‘Charles’ to manipulate her into satiating his lustful desires”.
“By sexually assaulting the victim, not only did (he) breach the trust that she had in him, but as close neighbours with the victim’s family members, he would have completely shattered their legitimate expectation that he would not harm their little girl,” said DPP Kavita.
DPP Kavita pointed out that he had engaged in grooming behaviour with the girl, and the offences were committed after careful planning to avoid detection.
The girl also reported having some post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, such as intrusive thoughts of the abuse, nightmares and poor concentration. The girl said she “cried so much everywhere (she went)” and felt like she was the reason for everything that happened, and lost interest in life, school and friends.
DPP Kavita added that as the girl was 11 then, she was not in a position to “appreciate and understand the nature and consequences that an act of sexual intercourse entailed and what the concept of virginity meant”. Any female under 14 years old cannot consent to sexual activity.
For each charge of aggravated statutory rape, he could have received between eight to 20 years’ jail and given 12 strokes of the cane.
