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| Photos shown are for illustration purposes only |
SINGAPORE — A father of seven who sexually abused four daughters, raping three of them, and ill-treated a son was sentenced to 33 years, two months jail, and 24 strokes of the cane on Friday (18 March).
In passing the sentence, Justice Tan Siong Thye described the case as “one of the worst cases of rape and sexual assault by penetration”. The man had taken complete advantage of his daughters to satisfy his sexual perversion over a prolonged period.
The man, a 45-year-old freelance instructor for children camps, earlier pleaded guilty to seven charges in the High Court on 7 March, including aggravated rape, aggravated sexual assault by penetration, aggravated molest, and ill-treating a child. All these charges were for offenses committed against one daughter, who was around 10 when the offences began, and is now 16.
Of his seven children, a son, 23, and a daughter, 24, are from a previous marriage. He has five children with his current wife. These comprise four girls aged 12 to 19, and a 15-year-old boy. None can be named to protect the victims’ identities.
Sexual abuse of daughter
From 2008, the man lived with his family at a flat in Ang Mo Kio before moving to a flat in Canberra in November 2017. Between 2016 and 2018, the main victim was sexually abused by the man, usually at night when his wife was away at work. He threatened to pull the girl from school if she did not have sex with him every day. This scared the girl, who thought that she would be abused by him even more. She did not tell anyone about the acts as she feared that nobody would believe her.
Sexual act with the youngest girl
In 2018, he engaged in a sexual act with the youngest girl, pretending to clean her genitals, before taking a photo of her. He then showed each of the three girls the photo he took and instructed them on “how to clean” up properly after their periods. He repeated the same act that year, also ostensibly to teach the girls how to clean themselves properly.
Last occasion of rape
The man sexually assaulted the main victim in the master bedroom toilet on 16 November 2018. Her two older sisters asked her what had happened, as they found it strange that she had showered in the master bedroom toilet.
The girl tearfully confided in her siblings about the sexual abuse. One sister convinced the girl to lodge a police report and they decided to go to a distant police station so that they would not be found by the man.
The girls decided to expose this father
They left after midnight on 17 November 2018 on the pretext of throwing rubbish. The girl was later conveyed to hospital where she stayed for a week, before moving to a children’s home for two weeks.
