Two men who sexually abused stepdaughters in separate cases, jailed more than 10 years each

SINGAPORE — The High Court heard two cases of men who exploited their respective stepdaughters for their own sexual gratification on Tuesday (Feb 11).

In one case, a 39-year-old security officer forced his daughter who was around 10 years old to fellate him. 

The girl’s mother found out about it but kept it a “family secret” for fear of the damage it could bring to her family’s reputation. 

The abuse came to light almost 10 years later after the mother told a social worker after giving birth to a third daughter she conceived with the accused last year.

He was sentenced to 12 years in jail and 13 strokes of the cane after pleading guilty to one count of aggravated sexual assault by penetration and one count of aggravated outrage of modesty to a minor.

In the other case, a 36-year-old unemployed man took advantage of his stepdaughter who expressed affection for him as she never had a father. He molested her on at least four occasions over a period of two months in 2018, during which he also forced her to fellate him. She was 11 years old then.

This case was uncovered after the girl’s primary school form teacher found cuts on the girl’s arm. The girl resorted to self-harm after she felt stressed and helpless over the sexual intrusions. 

Her stepfather was sentenced to 13 years and 6 months in jail and 21 strokes of the cane. He pleaded guilty to three counts of outrage of modesty and one count of sexual assault by penetration.

The accused persons in both cases could not be named due to a court order protecting the victims’ identities.

THE FIRST CASE

In the case involving the 39-year-old, the court heard that he made her stepdaughter, who was around 10 years old, fellate him in the toilet of their own home while her two younger stepsisters watched television in the living room.

He also took photographs of her performing the sexual act on him for his own viewing pleasure.

The girl’s mother — whom the man married in 2005 when the girl was still about five years old — discovered a photograph of the sex act some time before the girl entered Primary 6, and confronted her husband in the presence of the girl immediately. 

But the woman, who is now 37 years old, decided to keep it a secret. The victim also agreed then not to bring it up again. 

The stepfather stopped subjecting her to sexual abuse thereafter. 

The matter, however, came to light last year, around 10 years later, when the girl’s mother delivered a baby daughter whom she had with the abuser and confided in a social worker about her discovery.

The stepfather was later charged for that incident and faced four other outrage of modesty charges for making the young child masturbate him on four occasions.

The girl is 20 years old today and was present in court on Tuesday. She spoke cordially with the perpetrator after he was sentenced.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Eugene Teh said that at the time of the offences, the victim had listened to the accused whom she calls “daddy” and did as he directed as she was afraid of the accused, who was usually strict with her. 

The victim also “did not know or understand what the accused was doing to her”, he added.

In addressing the court on an appropriate sentence, DPP Gail Wong said the stepfather abused the girl’s trust, pointing out that trust is not determined by blood or biological ties but the position of the offender in the family in relation to the victim.

“A stepfather is in a similar position of authority as a father…The accused was expected to protect all his children from harm, without exception,” she said. 

“He not only failed to do so, but exploited the very position of authority and trust, which gave him repeated access to the victim…Home was a false haven. Familial abuse of trust is particularly abominable for these reasons.”

On his act of photographing the victim fellating him, DPP Teh said: “Essentially, he created child pornography of his own stepdaughter. The photographs allowed for replay and re-victimisation.”

THE SECOND CASE

As for the case involving the 36-year-old, the court heard that the abuse started in July 2018 when he left his job and began spending more time at home. That was about four months after he married the girl’s mother.

He started by rubbing the 11-year-old victim’s private parts over her clothes and this escalated within a month later to asking his stepdaughter to perform oral sex on him. 

The court heard that the stepfather would approach the victim while her mother was away at work.  

He would abuse her in one of the two bedrooms of a flat which the couple and the victim also shared with his in-laws, two brothers-in-law and a nephew. 

The court heard that the victim did not inform anyone about the incidents because she was afraid that her mother would not believe her and did not want to cause friction among her family members. 

She then resorted to self-harm as a coping mechanism and it got the attention of her form teacher, who then referred her to the school counsellor. The matter later reached the Ministry of Social and Family Development.

With the authorities involved, the victim made a police report on Sept 25, 2018 stating that she was made to perform sexual acts on her stepfather. The man was arrested that same day.

Dr Parvathy Pathy, a senior consultant at the Institute of Mental Health’s Child Guidance Clinic, saw the girl in February last year. She wrote in her report that the girl felt disgusted, angry and sad at what her stepfather had done to her.

The girl also told the consultant that she would blame herself if her mother and stepfather eventually divorced over what he had done to her. 

DPPs Selene Yap and Colin Ng submitted that minors such as the victim “need and deserve the fullest protection of the law”.

This is especially so since the offences that feature an abuse of a position of trust in a familial context are “hard to detect”. The victims may be unwilling or hesitant to report the matter to the authorities for a multitude of reasons, they said.

“Public interest requires the sentence to befit the offences’ serious nature, and to encapsulate the high degree of public aversion against such sexual offences perpetuated against minors,” they added.