WHAT HAPPENED
The court heard that the man was working as a technician when the offences were committed from 2019 to 2021. He lived with the victim, her two brothers, and the victim’s mother.
He first sexually assaulted his daughter between Jul 31 and Aug 9, 2019. The victim’s mother was away visiting relatives in India during that period.
The victim had returned home from school and was sitting alone on the floor of her bedroom, playing games on her phone.
Her father entered the room and sat down next to her. He watched her play games for a few minutes, then touched her leg and sexually assaulted her.
This happened again around Oct 1, 2019. The victim went home after finishing her last Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) paper, and baked muffins to destress.
The girl and her father were alone at home in the evening. She was in her bedroom playing games on her phone when he came in, sat next to her and sexually assaulted her.
He sexually assaulted her again between October and December 2019.
From around 2020 onwards, the victim’s mother started working night shifts as a security guard, and would be at work from about 7pm to 7am.
When her mother was working, the victim slept alone in a bedroom, her brothers shared another bedroom, and her father slept on a sofa in the living room.
Although the girl would lock her bedroom door at night, her father had the key. He went into the victim’s bedroom at night and molested her at least two times in 2020 and 2021.
In 2021, he also sent her a pornographic video, which she downloaded and watched before realising what it was. She was very angry and deleted the video.
The girl was distressed by the thought that her father would continue to come into her room at night to molest her.
She stayed alert at night to try to guard against him entering the bedroom, and developed insomnia and repetitive thoughts about what she was going through.
She felt scared and disgusted by her father’s actions, but only realised his behaviour was wrong when she was taught sex education in secondary school.
However, she feared reporting the abuse as her father had a hot temper and she was afraid he might scold or hit her. She also believed people would think badly of her.
Around midnight on Jul 26, 2021, when her mother was at work, the girl’s father entered her bedroom and molested her. He ignored her when she told him to stop and pushed his hand away.
He then began to undress. Afraid of what he might do, the victim left the bedroom immediately. She only returned and locked the door after he had left the room.
This incident left the victim extremely upset. She felt she could not take it anymore and that her father was not going to stop the abuse, prosecutors said.
The girl told her form teacher about the sexual assaults at the next opportunity on Jul 27, 2021.
Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) officers brought her to make a police report, and her father was arrested later that day.
A doctor at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) assessed that the offender was a paedophile, and found him fit to plead.
The sexual abuse left an impact on the victim, who said she did not want her father to come back to her family, and could never trust him again.
She said that she was filled with dread and fear every time he went into her bedroom, but did not know what to do. She would shut her eyes tightly and pretend to be asleep, and shout when he started to touch her.
“I have this rage inside me. Whenever I think of what had happened, how he betrayed my trust and did this to me as a father, I will snap. I still break down and cry alone whenever I think of all this,” she said in a victim impact statement.
She also felt unable to trust men or boys anymore as she was fearful of what they would do to her.
