Man who sexually abused daughter has jail term extended for claiming penis was expanded
The Court of Appeal judges said that the lengths the convicted man had gone to indicated he was "more than wholly unrepentant" for the sexual assault of his daughter.
SINGAPORE — For committing “egregious” abuse of process by colluding with another man to introduce false evidence, the Court of Appeal on Thursday (Aug 8) increased a 43-year-old father’s jail sentence by four-and-a-half years.
More than two years ago, the man was convicted in the High Court of sexually abusing his young daughter between 2011 and 2014. He cannot be named to protect the identity of the girl, who was 11 years old when the abuse began.
Initially sentenced to 23-and-a-half years behind bars and the maximum 24 strokes of the cane, he now has to serve a total of 28 years’ jail with the same number of strokes.
The man had claimed in his defence that he had a “deformed” penis, following a botched enlargement procedure in 2009. This allegedly made it physically impossible for him to sexually penetrate the girl.
His wife and daughter, however, testified that it looked normal even in April 2014.
‘CONSIDERABLY DELAYED' THE APPEAL
Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, who delivered the apex court’s decision on behalf of a three-judge panel on Thursday, also rejected the man’s request to begin serving his sentence a week later.
The man had been out on bail pending the conclusion of the appeal.
His attempt to introduce new evidence, which was found to be fraudulent, was reflective of him “doing whatever he can to avoid facing the due consequences” of his offences, the Chief Justice said.
While the court is “often sympathetic” to such requests, the man had “considerably delayed” the appeal with his actions, the judge told the man’s lawyer, Mr Ramesh Tiwary.
“Given the lengths he has gone to… this suggests to us that he is more than wholly unrepentant for what he has done,” Chief Justice Menon added.
To fight his conviction and sentence, the man had found two witnesses to corroborate his claim that he has a misshapen penis.
In light of this, the Court of Appeal had to send the case back to the High Court. Justice Aedit Abdullah, who initially convicted the man, ruled on the new evidence before the appeal could resume.
One of the man’s witnesses — Mr Muhammad Ridzwan Idris, his former football buddy — testified that he had seen the man’s penis in a public bathroom in 2013, when they worked together. Mr Ridzwan said that it was “round like a doorknob”, and produced a drawing of it.
Justice Aedit threw out this evidence in January, ruling that it was “contrived and false” and that the two men had abused the court process.
He did not increase the man’s sentence then even though the prosecution asked for an uplift of one-and-a-half years, saying he would leave it to the apex court to decide.
THE ARGUMENTS
Over two hours of hearing on Thursday, Mr Tiwary argued several points in his client’s defence.
This included that Mr Ridzwan had told the truth, as he was certain he saw the man’s penis on a specific day during the period they sold snacks at the Singapore Expo.
“His certainty that it was Aug 3 was, in fact, a mark that he was trying to tell the truth. It would have been easier for him to say, I can’t remember which day,” the lawyer said.
But Chief Justice Menon pointed to Justice Aedit’s finding that it was “implausible” for a person to remember such a specific date six years later, without referring to notes or a diary.
Judge of Appeal Tay Yong Kwang also questioned the lawyer over why Mr Ridzwan was not concerned about his friend’s alleged out-of-shape penis, and whether the man could still play football with “the enlarged organ between his thighs”.
“Yes, even now he’s physically active. It doesn’t impede his ability to run or play football,” Mr Tiwary replied.
When questioned about the prosecution’s request to increase his client’s sentence, Mr Tiwary urged the court not to do so. Even if the court found Mr Ridzwan’s evidence to be false, there was no evidence his client encouraged him to lie, the lawyer argued.
However, Chief Justice Menon responded that if they made that finding, the man must have known that Mr Ridzwan’s testimony was “designed to avoid the consequences of his actions”.
Ultimately, the appeal judges agreed with Justice Aedit that any deformity in the man’s penis was not sufficient to raise any reasonable doubt about the sexual abuse.
It was also “unbelievable” that he had “chance encounters” with the two witnesses, who had seen his penis, close to the appeal hearing dates.
The judges increased the man’s sentence for three reasons: The need for specific deterrence, general deterrence, and the fact that abuse of process “attacks the integrity of the judicial process concluded in the court below”.
As Mr Ridzwan had “falsified various aspects” of his testimony, Chief Justice Menon added that they would be referring him to the Public Prosecutor “for investigation into possible offences arising from what appears to have been his acts of perjury”.
The Court of Appeal will issue its full written grounds of decision at a later date.
