Ex-SAF Regular Sexually Assaults Young Daughter For 4 Years
Parents are the people children tend to look up to most and lean on in difficult times. But for four years, a young daughter had to suffer through hell as her father sexually assaulted her on a regular basis.
Now, the ex-SAF regular faces 24 years in jail and a maximum of 24 strokes of the cane.
The man pleaded guilty to three counts of rape and aggravated rape. The court also considered five additional charges of sexual offences against his daughter.
Man claims it would be safer to be sexually intimate with him
According to ChannelNews Asia (CNA), the ex-SAF regular sexually assaulted his daughter when she was between the ages of 10 and 14. His acts only ended when the daughter’s mother walked in on them in Jun 2018.
The assaults took place in various locations over the years, namely the offender’s in-laws’ home, his parents’ home, and the family home.
A report by TODAY stated that the man first started molesting his daughter in 2014 and 2015. It then later escalated to rape in 2016, during which the daughter reportedly did not struggle against her father.
After allegedly developing an enjoyment of these acts, the daughter continued to have intercourse with her father thereafter.
In 2017, on one such occasion, the man reportedly felt as though his condom had broken and made his daughter consume a “morning-after” pill when he picked her up from school the next day.
Citing investigation reports, CNA stated that the man claimed that he did not want his daughter to seek sexual intimacy with other boys. He added that these boys would “trash her” and it would be “safer” to be intimate with him as he knew how to use protection.
A psychiatric assessment at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) found that he had no mental disorders or abnormal sexual behaviour or impulses.
Victim’s mother discovers daughter & father performing sexual act
In Jun 2018, the man’s wife reportedly walked in on the pair while they were performing a sexual act in the family home.
She then chased her husband out and tried to clarify things with her daughter. However, the young girl wrapped herself in a blanket and cried, unable to speak.
The mother later learned that this was not a one-off occasion and that the pair had performed numerous sexual acts prior to the discovery.
However, out of concern for her children, she did not report her husband to the police. She also arrived at the decision after her daughter apparently threatened suicide if she lodged a police report.
A year later, the daughter took matters into her own hands and reported her father to the police after feeling unhappy with his interference in her personal life.
Young daughter suffering as a result of prolonged sexual abuse
After reporting the abuse, the young girl received social service intervention from the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF), reported CNA. They later brought her to stay at a home for girls, where she received psychiatric treatment.
According to the assessment, she now suffers from the following:
- Insomnia
- Panic attacks
- Nightmares
- Recurrent thoughts of abuse
- Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
In an impact statement recorded in Jan 2022, the victim expressed that the simple jangling of keys or opening and shutting of doors would remind her of the assaults as they were sounds her father made upon returning home.
Court describe ex-SAF regular’s acts as “utterly abhorrent”
Speaking about the man’s offences and charges at length, Justice Ang Cheng Hock described his crime as an “utter abhorrent, perverse breach of the trust between a father and daughter”.
The judge took into account the man’s readiness to plead guilty and accepted the sentence the prosecution proposed.
Even so, the court still wishes to send a strong message against such criminal acts.
Hope victim can recover from traumas
While the law has dealt with the man harshly, we hope that the young girl will find solace in knowing that her abuser is behind bars now.
More importantly, we hope that with time, she’ll be able to recover from these painful traumas.
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Featured image by MS News.
