SINGAPORE, Jan 12 — He began molesting his stepdaughter when she was just seven, persisting for two decades even when she began locking her bedroom door to fend him off.

When asked to describe the impact of the abuse, she wrote in a statement: “These incidents will be in me forever... I feel dirty and disgusted with myself. I am just waiting for me to die so that I can escape from the past and restart my life forgetting all those dirty memories.”

His actions led to a prosecutor calling it the “worst case of sexual abuse involving acts of outrage of modesty to appear before the courts to date”, both due to the period and nature of the acts.

The man, a Singaporean bus driver now aged 66, was sentenced to eight years, nine months and eight weeks’ jail yesterday.

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This includes two weeks’ jail in lieu of caning, as offenders aged 50 or above cannot be caned under the law here.

He had pleaded guilty two months ago to five counts of molestation. He cannot be named due to a court order to protect the identity of the victim, who is now aged 33.

’Highly intrusive’

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In sentencing him, District Judge Jasvender Kaur noted that his acts were “highly intrusive” and that he committed a significant breach of trust.

“You took advantage of her whenever you desired. All this happened in your own home when she should have been safe. You abused the trust in an extreme way and it has left her emotionally scarred,” the judge told him.

Nevertheless, she gave him some credit for pleading guilty — albeit on the first day of trial — and saving the victim the horror of reliving the incidents.

Earlier, Deputy Public Prosecutor Sruthi Boppana sought the maximum 10 years’ jail for the accused.

Each charge of molestation carries up to two years’ jail, a fine, caning, or any combination of the three.

What happened

The court heard that the stepfather began renting a room with the victim and her family in 1990, a year after her biological father died.

He soon became the only father figure in her life. She was three years old at the time and called him “papa”.

The abuse started in 1994 and went on until 2017.

Once, in 1999 when she suffered from constipation, she asked him for help to insert suppository medication in her anus since her mother was not home.

He did so before molesting her on her bed. She then went to the toilet to cry, feeling disgusted over what had happened.

During police investigations, the man admitted that he was not regularly having sex with his wife and was stressed over his finances.

From then on, he began performing increasingly lewd acts on the girl and she did not tell anyone about them for fear of reprisal. She was also afraid he would rape her.

She knew that her family was financially dependent on him, especially her mother, and “grew accustomed to the sexual abuse as it became the norm to her”, DPP Sruthi told the court.

The victim became resigned to her predicament, thinking that she would either kill herself or move out of the flat after turning 35, which would allow her to buy a resale flat under public housing rules.

In 2013, she confided in her younger brother about the sexual abuse and he suggested that she start locking her bedroom door.

On February 21, 2017, she was alone at home with her stepfather when he entered her room using a spare key.

She had been using her mobile phone before he entered the room so she continued sending text messages to her friends, telling one of them that she was scared and wanted to die.

The friend called her and began talking loudly, driving the man out of the room.

The victim stayed over at her friend’s place that evening, though she was still reluctant to report the matter. She finally did so two days later.

The stepfather’s DNA was later found on her shorts and underwear.

A psychiatrist assessed that the victim had symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

She had coped with the abuse by reminding herself that he had not raped or penetrated her. — TODAY

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