SINGAPORE, Oct 5 — A father who raped his daughter and forced his teenage son to have sex with the mother when she was drunk was sentenced yesterday (October 4) to 29 years' jail and 24 strokes of the cane.

The father, now aged 41, had committed many sexual acts against his daughter for six years, starting from when she was nine years old.

Prosecutors called the case "unprecedented in its complete and perverse desecration of all familial ties” and said that the father committed "abhorrent” acts against all three of his immediate family members.

The man pleaded guilty to three charges — one count of aggravated sexual assault by penetration of his daughter who was a minor under 14, one count of aggravated statutory rape of his daughter, and one count of sexual assault by penetration by forcing his son to sexually penetrate the mother.

The man cannot be named due to a court order protecting the identity of his wife and children. He worked as a sound technician before his arrest.

Thirteen similar charges of serious sexual offences against his three family members and one charge of possessing 284 obscene videos were taken into consideration during sentencing by Justice Dedar Singh Gill.

Deputy Public Prosecutors (DPPs) Victoria Ting and Kevin Ho said in their submissions: "It is difficult to imagine a series of sexual offences more unnatural or odious.”

Sexual abuse

The court heard that during the year-end school holidays in 2015, when the man’s daughter was 11 years old and in Primary 5, he went into his daughter’s room and told her to wash her private parts.

They were both alone in their flat in Sembawang at the time.

His daughter knew what was coming because the man had performed sexual acts on her when she was nine years old, the prosecution said. 

She complied because she was scared of him. 

When she returned to the room, he sexually assaulted her.

Two years later, around September 2017 when the man’s daughter was 13 years old, he entered her room and again told her to wash herself. 

The man had been drinking in the flat at the time.

He sexually assaulted her again and then raped her without protection, telling her to tolerate the pain.

On several occasions, the daughter confided in her brother about what the father was doing to her.

Although her brother advised her not to give in to their father, he was so worried about being beaten by the father as well as the ruin it would bring to his family’s reputation that he dared not tell anyone else about the sexual assaults.

The daughter also did not tell the mother about it because he was afraid that it would cause her parents to quarrel, which would probably end up in her mother getting hurt.

Forced son to rape mother

Sometime in 2018, the man was drinking beer and liquor with his wife in their bedroom when his wife got drunk and fell asleep.

The man then told his son, who was around 15 or 16 years old and playing console games at the time, to follow him into the bedroom.

They had moved to a flat in Woodlands at the time.

When the son entered, he saw his mother on the bed, lying half-naked from the waist down.

The man told the son to have sex with her but the son refused.

Afraid of getting beat up by his hot-tempered father, who would often punch or kick him, the son eventually complied after the father got angry and raised his voice. 

The son closed his eyes and tried to obey his father's instructions. At one point, his father even physically assisted the act with his own hand. 

Discovery of offences

In 2019, when the daughter was in Secondary 3 and attended a talk in school about unprotected sex and sexually transmitted diseases, she began to realise that it was wrong for her father to have sex with her.

She felt very disgusted, the prosecution said, and cried on several occasions when the man tried to have sex with her.

The man, however, told his daughter that he had sex with her only because he was afraid she would have sex with other boys. 

"He thought that if she wanted to have sex, it should be with him instead of any outsiders,” the DPPs said.

On November 1 in 2019, the daughter got scared when she felt her father wanted to make sexual advances on her. 

She stayed in her room and cried until her mother left for work. She then headed to her aunt’s flat, where she confided in her aunt about what had happened. 

In the early hours on November 2, her aunt took her to the police station where she made a police report about being raped by her father. 

The man was arrested on the same day.

Asking for 30 years’ jail and 24 strokes of the cane, the prosecution argued that the man’s acts were a grave abuse of his position of trust and authority as the victims’ father.

"It is no hyperbole to say that this case strikes at the very conscience of any civilised society,” the DPPs said.

"The sentence imposed by this honourable court must be commensurate with the grave need for retribution and deterrence.

"It must also mark society’s disapproval of crimes that offend the sensibilities of the general public, and quell the public disquiet and unease engendered by such crimes.” ― TODAY