10 years' jail for man who forced stepdaughter to perform sex act and bite him, claiming he was teaching her self-defence
https://tdy.sg/47JGhKL
- While everyone was asleep in their one-room rental flat, a 50-year-old man brought his stepdaughter into his bedroom
- He asked her to perform a sex act on him and to bite him during the act, under the guise of teaching her self-defence
- The man also performed two sex acts on the 16-year-old
- He was sentenced to 10 years' jail
BY
JASMINE ONG
Published January 26, 2024Updated January 26, 2024
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SINGAPORE — Under the guise of teaching her self-defence, a man told his stepdaughter to perform a sex act on him and bite him during the act.
The 50-year-old Singaporean was sentenced to 10 years' jail on Friday (Jan 26) after he pleaded guilty to one charge of oral rape in November last year. Two other similar charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.
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The accused and the stepdaughter, who was between 16 and 17 years old at the time of the incident, cannot be named under a court-issued gag order to protect the victim's identity.
The court heard that when the victim's mother married her stepfather in October 2017, the victim was living with her grandparents.
It was only when the victim found out that she was pregnant with her then-boyfriend's child that her mother and her stepfather offered to care for her during her pregnancy.
The victim eventually moved into the one-room rental flat to stay with her mother, her stepfather, her two step-siblings and her daughter, whom she gave birth to on April 10 in 2019.
Sometime in 2020, while everyone was asleep, the victim's stepfather approached her and pulled her by the hand into his bedroom, where he slept alone.
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There, he told the victim that he wanted to teach her how to protect herself against men and made her follow his instructions to perform a sex act on him. He then asked her to bite him.
The victim said she felt helpless and complied as she felt she had no choice, Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) J Jayaletchmi told the court.
The victim then asked to leave the room by pretending to be sleepy.
The stepfather had also done other sex acts to her on two other occasions in 2020 which were the subjects of the charges taken into consideration.
TOLD A SOCIAL WORKER WHILE SEEKING FINANCIAL HELP
Sometime in late August 2021, the victim told her uncle that she was sexually abused by her stepfather.He advised her to leave the flat with her daughter and the victim did so on Sep 6 to stay with her grandparents.
About 10 days later, the victim visited the Thye Hua Kwan Family Service Centre to seek financial assistance for herself and her daughter.
This was when she told a social worker at the centre about her stepfather's sexual abuse and explained that she was reluctant to lodge a police report out of fear that he might harm her and her daughter, said DPP Jayaletchmi.
The matter was raised to child protection services on Oct 5 and a police report was lodged two days later.
The stepfather was arrested on Oct 8.
After assessing the victim at the Institute of Mental Health, Dr Lau Boon Jia diagnosed the victim to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with the abuse having contributed greatly to the development of a major depressive disorder.
Dr Lau also observed that the victim felt very distressed and had multiple physical symptoms related to PTSD.
PSYCHIATRIC HARM, ABUSE OF TRUST: JUDGE
Seeking a jail term of between 11 and 13 years, DPP Rimplejit Kaur argued that the stepfather had committed an abuse of trust and that his act was as severe an infringement of sexual autonomy as violation through intercourse that it deserved the label of rape.DPP Kaur added that due to his age the prosecution also sought an additional six months' jail in lieu of the proposed 12 strokes of the cane.
Defence counsel Gregory Fong, who represented the stepfather, reiterated that severity has to play a big part in the offence and in this case, the assault took place for less than a minute.
"It was for purposes of disciplining his stepdaughter and no sexual pleasure was derived by my client as there was an element of pain rather than pleasure," said Mr Fong.
In delivering her judgement, Justice Hoo Sheau Peng agreed that there was psychiatric harm and an abuse of trust.
She added however that mitigating weight should be given to the stepfather for pleading guilty as that spared the victim from reliving the trauma, which had left a certain mental effect on the victim.
Anyone guilty of committing oral rape could be jailed for up to 20 years and fined or caned
