Man gets jail for molesting his daughter when she was in kindergarten, claims daughter is lying

SINGAPORE: A man who contested claims from his own daughter that he molested her when she was in kindergarten was sentenced to three years and four months' jail on Tuesday (Feb 22).

Of the jail term, four months is in lieu of caning as the man is 61 and cannot be caned. He is set to appeal against his conviction and sentence, and cannot be named due to gag orders protecting the victim's identity.

He was convicted at the close of trial of two counts of molesting a minor. His daughter testified that her father molested her after using his computer when she was five or six and in kindergarten.

According to her testimony, she was eating cereal in the living room of the family flat on an afternoon in 2009 when her father called her into the bedroom.

He asked her to sit on his leg, before grabbing her hand and forcing her to perform a sex act. He then molested her and exposed himself to her, she said.

The victim testified that she "just let him do whatever he wants to do" because he was her father, and she did not want to disobey him. She said her father was looking back and forth between her and the computer while this was happening.

She left the room after saying she wanted to eat. Her father told her not to tell her mother what happened, she testified.

THE TESTIMONY OF THE VICTIM'S MOTHER

The victim's mother testified that she recalled a day in 2009 when she was out and tried calling her then-husband on his phone, but he did not pick up.

When she returned to the flat, she saw her daughter eating cereal on the sofa and watching television, while her husband was playing computer games in the bedroom with a towel around his waist.

Two days later, her daughter told her what happened. When the victim's mother questioned the girl, the girl appeared worried and kept repeating that she was telling the truth.

The victim's mother testified that her daughter was telling the truth, as it was her habit to repeat herself if she was talking about something that really happened.

The woman later confronted her husband, but he denied the deed. Feeling there was not enough evidence in terms of pictures of the incident, the woman felt there was no point in making a police report.

She also said she did not want to lodge one, and told her daughter not to do so. She said she did not want to handle everything herself as she was going through some “criticial moments”, including an incident where her son had a fall.

Sometime in primary school, the victim saw a video about a girl who lodged a police report 18 years after the incident. The girl in the video was suffering from trauma and the video explained the details of what happened to her.

The victim realised that what her father had done to her was wrong, but still did not lodge a police report, as it was a "very scary" thing to do as a child and she wanted to obey her mother's instructions.

WHAT SPARKED THE POLICE REPORT NINE YEARS LATER

The victim had a panic attack in school in January 2018, when she was 14 or 15, after being around boys. She later told a school counsellor what her father had done to her all those years ago.

The matter was flagged to child protection officers, who filed a police report against the wishes of the victim's mother, who said she did not want it to be escalated to the police.

The victim's boyfriend at the time testified that the victim had told him in 2016 that her father used to touch her inappropriately. He said she told him this during a date, and that she "looked traumatised and her tone was very upset" when she told him about it.

THE MAN'S DEFENCE

In his defence, the man claimed the incidence was "misconstrued". He claimed his daughter had fallen from his lap while he was playing a computer game, and he had grabbed her.

The defence also claimed the man's daughter had motivations for making a false allegation against him, "arising from the animosity held against him for perceived and actual faults as a father".

This include: The offender criticising the way the victim dressed, the victim wanting to get rid of the offender's joint custody of her and the offender confronting the victim over a relationship she had when she was older.

When he was on the stand, the offender said he was "slightly strict" with the victim because he saw "love bites" on her neck made by her boyfriend.

He said he did not understand why his daughter would make such an allegation against him.

"Maybe it is because my ex-wife kept pressuring my daughter. She kept telling that her father is a useless person because I always like to go out of Singapore to find girlfriend," he said.

"Maybe because my ex-wife does not want me to have my son or my
daughter. I told my wife to allow to use one of my children’s name to
apply for a house or a rental house so that I have a place to stay. She
kept on telling me that the children refuse."

The judge had convicted him after finding the victim's evidence clear, credible and unusually convincing. He rejected the man's account that the victim had misconstrued his acts of catching the victim as she fell from his lap as molest.

He also rejected any suggestion of possible motivation on the victim's part to implicate her father.