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SINGAPORE — A 28-year-old man, who was described as a “monster” by the prosecution for prostituting his wife and sexually abusing his daughter, failed in his appeal on Thursday (July 16) for a lighter sentence.
He had been sentenced in the High Court a year ago to 25-and-a-half years’ jail, the maximum 24 strokes of the cane and a S$12,000 fine.
He had pleaded guilty to four charges of prostituting his wife, forcing their six-year-old daughter to perform sexual acts on him and molesting his 13-year-old niece in a hotel room.
The man is currently serving his sentence and cannot be named in order to protect his victims’ identities.
Last year, he had mumbled incoherently in court as he appealed against his sentence, leaving the court perplexed.
The judges then adjourned the case for him to hire a lawyer.
On Thursday, he appeared in the Court of Appeal with his new lawyer, Mr Mohammad Shafiq Haja Maideen from Abdul Rahman Law Corporation.
Mr Shafiq argued for his client’s sentence to be reduced to 18 years’ jail and 12 strokes of the cane.
He said that High Court judge Chan Seng Onn had wrongly analysed some offence-specific factors and allowed the “disgust factor” of the accused’s conduct to cloud his judgment.
Justice Chan had echoed the prosecution in describing the acts as monstrous, further noting that he had sexually exploited and abused three female relatives.
Judge of Appeal Judith Prakash, who heard the appeal with Judge of Appeal Tay Yong Kwang and Justice Woo Bih Li, said on Thursday that the criticisms of Justice Chan were “unwarranted” and his description of the man’s behaviour was “not exaggerated and extreme in any way”.
They were reflective of the general societal view that a father, husband and uncle should be responsible for his female relatives, Judge of Appeal Prakash added.
She said that the man had committed grave abuse of trust as his daughter was entitled to expect her father to protect her from harm rather than inflict it.
“The abuse of trust of a vulnerable person is qualitative. Even one instance is one too many and must be given due weight,” she noted.
While Mr Shafiq had applied to produce three medical reports as further evidence, he did not rely on them in his arguments.
The court was previously told that the man was on medication for epilepsy and high blood pressure.
The three judges dismissed the appeal, which was heard over video-conferencing platform Zoom in light of Covid-19 safe distancing measures.
THE CASE
The man began physically assaulting his wife while they were dating and ramped up his abuse after they got married in 2012.
The abuse continued during her pregnancies. The couple also have a younger son in addition to the daughter whom he sexually abused.
Four years into their marriage, he demanded that his wife provide sexual services to pay for their infant son’s milk powder and other household expenses.
The wife was reluctant at first but eventually succumbed out of fear that he would intensify his physical assaults.
They were facing financial difficulties as she had stopped working as a receptionist the year before while the man was unemployed.
He rejected her suggestion that she look for a job, insisting that prostitution was a “quick and lucrative” means of earning money to sustain their family, prosecutors said.
Following his instructions, she began soliciting customers on a website that he used to engage prostitutes.
If she could not meet a daily quota of customers set by him, he would force her to get more customers the following day.
He also asked her to secretly record the encounters and give him the recordings afterwards.
Between June and late August 2016, she ended up servicing 138 customers and earning nearly S$11,000 — money which she handed over to him.
During a stay at Value Hotel Balestier in July 2016, he forced his daughter to perform sex acts on him while his wife was in the toilet.
She stopped him when she saw what was happening but he threatened to beat them up if they told anyone about it.
On Aug 1, 2016, he insisted that his wife bring her niece to him. She refused but when he threatened to continue hitting her, she dragged the girl out of school.
She took the girl to Value Hotel Thomson where her husband molested the girl.
The man’s mother called the police about three weeks later after she learned about how he had abused his daughter.
https://www.todayonline.com/singapo...ting-wife-sexually-abusing-daughter-and-niece
