SINGAPORE, July 2 — Over the course of one-and-a-half years, a man sexually abused his young stepdaughter as she pretended to sleep – often with her mother lying asleep next to him as well.

The eight-year-old would cry when she had to return from her biological father’s home to the flat she lived in with her mother and stepfather, as she was afraid of what he would do to her.

Finally, on one occasion, her father realised what his ex-wife’s husband had done when the girl cried hysterically and refused to enter the flat.

They then made a police report on October 18, 2016.

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Today, the stepfather, now 42 years old, pleaded guilty in the High Court to one charge of sexual penetration of a minor under the age of 14, and two charges of using criminal force to molest the girl.

Seven similar charges will be taken into consideration for sentencing at a later undetermined date. The stepfather cannot be named due to a gag order by the court to protect the identity of the girl, who is now 12.

He was set to plead guilty in May, but contested the facts then because he said the girl had made advances at him.

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What happened

The court heard that the man began living with the victim after marrying her mother in April 2013. The mother had gained custody of all her four children following her divorce from the victim’s biological father in 2009.

When the sexual abuse started around January 2015, the victim was living in her maternal grandparents’ home along with her mother, stepfather, their two children, her biological siblings, a grand-aunt and a domestic helper.

The girl, who called the man “abah”, or “father” in Malay, slept in the same bedroom as him, her mother and her stepsiblings.

She usually slept on a smaller bed, while the man and the victim’s mother slept on a separate bigger bed. However, there were times when she slept with the adults as she was scared.

At first, the stepfather limited himself to touching the victim’s private parts over her clothes. He began sexually assaulting her when she was in Primary 3, increasing the frequency of the abuse when his wife got pregnant.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Kavita Uthrapathy said that when his “lust for his stepdaughter grew”, so did the audacity of the various sex acts he committed on her up until October 14, 2016.

He would sometimes do these while he lay in bed with the girl’s mother. All this while, the victim pretended to be asleep because she was afraid that the man would get angry with her.

In one instance in 2015, she asked him to lie down next to her on her bed because there was a heavy thunderstorm and she was scared. He then sexually assaulted her.

During this period, the victim’s biological father had regular contact with his daughter. The girl was often reluctant to return to the home of her maternal grandparents, but he thought she wanted to spend more time with him and managed to coax her into returning home.

However, on October 17, 2016, he suspected something was amiss when the victim became hysterical when it was time for her to return home.

The girl eventually told him that she had been sexually assaulted by her stepfather.

When the stepfather was arrested later the next day at his workplace, he told police officers that he started to notice the girl was developing physically, and was “overcome with lust” for her.

He later said that there were times when she asked him if he had done anything wrong to her, which he denied.

The girl has since moved in with her biological father and his wife. Psychologists found that she was having nightmares about her stepfather and had expressed emotional difficulties, including feeling anxious and hurt by her maternal relatives’ reaction.

Court documents did not state what their reactions were.

For using criminal force to molest the girl, the stepfather could be jailed up to five years, fined, caned, or any combination of the three.

For sexual penetration of a minor under 14, he could be jailed up to 20 years and given at least 12 strokes of the cane. — TODAY