Warning: This report contains distressing details of child sexual abuse.
SINGAPORE: A 55-year-old man was found guilty on Wednesday (May 20) of outraging the modesty of his stepdaughter, then eight or nine years old, making her perform a sex act.
The case came to light after the girl confided in her babysitter about the acts in 2021, years after they had taken place. The babysitter told the girl’s mother, who took her to file a police report.
The parties involved cannot be named due to a court order protecting the victim.
At the time of the offences, the man was married to the victim’s mother, who also had another son – the victim’s half-brother. The family lived in a one-room flat when the man moved in with them.
Eventually, the couple had six children together, and the family moved to a larger flat on the same floor in 2016 or 2017, the court heard. The man and the girl’s mother divorced in 2022.
One night in 2016 or 2017, when the family was in the midst of moving to the new flat, the man asked the victim, then in Primary 3, to follow him so that they could perform prayers for the new house.
Armed with a book and a carrot, he took her to the new public housing unit and locked the gate. No one else was with them.
The man told his stepdaughter to sit on a stool in the corner of the room and asked if she wanted to see a ghost.
The victim replied that she did not want to see a ghost, so he blindfolded her and tied her hands together with two pieces of cloth, the court heard.
Using the carrot, he tricked her into performing a sex act.
After a while, she started to suspect that he had tricked her. She told him that she needed to go to the toilet, and the man untied her hands and removed the blindfold.
The girl ran back home and told her mother what had happened. After asking for more details, her mother immediately confronted the accused about the incident.
The girl did not disclose the man’s sexual abuse because she felt uncomfortable doing so and did not want to trouble others. Her stepfather was verbally abusive and she was scared of him.
She felt safe to disclose the incidents only in 2021 when the man no longer lived with them, the court heard.
In other instances in 2016, the man outraged her modesty in the bedroom he shared with her mother, and in a shower cubicle in Sengkang Swimming Complex.
When the girl was just three or four years old, the man asked her if she would perform a sex act.
In a 2022 report by a doctor with the Institute of Mental Health, it was stated that the man was not of unsound mind at the time of the offences, and would have been able to appreciate his actions, Deputy Public Prosecutor Phoebe Tan said.
“He was aware then and also now that his actions are wrongful,” she added.
The prosecution said on Wednesday that the victim felt guilty for not saying “no” to her stepfather, and for not disclosing the abuse earlier.
She suffered from suicidal tendencies and insomnia, worrying about her studies because she had missed lessons due to the man’s sexual abuse, Ms Tan said.
The man will return to court on Jul 15 to be sentenced for his crimes.
For making his stepdaughter perform a sex act, he could face between eight and 20 years’ jail. The maximum penalty also includes at least 12 strokes of the cane, but the law does not permit caning for offenders aged 50 and above.
Anyone convicted of outraging a person’s modesty could face at least five years in jail, a fine, caning, or any combination of these punishments.
