SINGAPORE, July 21 — A 77-year-old Singaporean insurance agent and business owner went on trial on Monday on 10 charges linked to the sexual abuse of his late secretary’s daughter, whom he began grooming when she was just 14.
The man, who cannot be named to protect the victim’s identity, faces charges of committing obscene acts and sexual penetration of a minor between the ages of 14 and 16.
If convicted, he faces up to 20 years’ jail and a fine for the penetration charges, and up to five years’ jail and a fine of up to S$10,000 (about RM3,300) for each obscene act charge, The Straits Times reported.
According to the prosecution, the abuse began in 2012, after the man — then 64 — stepped in as a caregiver for the teenager and her sister when their mother, his secretary, was diagnosed with breast cancer.
He had reportedly been a trusted family friend and even let the family stay rent-free in one of his properties for about a year, while regularly driving the girls to and from school and tuition classes.
The prosecution said the man used this access to isolate the girl, allegedly lying to her that he was only 40 years old and telling her that her father — who was preoccupied with work at the time — was “a bad person,” driving a wedge between her and her family.
Court documents cited in the opening address described how the abuse escalated gradually. In 2012, while the girl was in Secondary 2, the man allegedly held her hand in his car after picking her up from school. Later that year, he reportedly drove her to the Mandai reservoir area and kissed her — both times, prosecutors said, she did not resist despite feeling uncomfortable. The prosecution said he continued exchanging text messages with her and taking her out for meals, before escalating to sexual assault once she had become “desensitised” to the physical contact.
Prosecutors allege the man sexually assaulted the girl multiple times between 2012 and 2013, when she was under 16, and continued the abuse after she turned 16 in 2014. In early 2015, while she was in junior college — roughly equivalent to Form Six or a pre-university programme in Malaysia — she became pregnant. She underwent an abortion that February, accompanied by the man. No paternity test was carried out at the time, court documents showed.
The victim, now 27, ended the relationship at the end of 2017 and made a police report in August 2019.
She was the prosecution’s first witness when the trial opened on Monday, though the hearing was closed to both the public and the media. The prosecution said it intends to call five witnesses in total, including the victim and her mother.
The trial continues on Tuesday.
