SINGAPORE: A 67-year-old man was sentenced to 19-and-a-half years’ jail on Friday (Jan 24) for raping his daughter’s maid while the family was away.
He informed the court that he would appeal against his conviction and sentence, and was given a stay of execution on imprisonment.
The man, who cannot be named due to a gag order, was found guilty in November 2024 of two charges of rape and two charges of outrage of modesty after a trial.
The prosecution’s case was that the man raped the maid while she was alone at home with him on the night of Jan 5, 2020. The rest of the family were overseas.
According to the prosecution, he invited the maid to watch television with him and offered her wine. He also gave her “supplement injections”.
He gave the maid the injections on a sofa in the living room, before sexually violating the woman.
The woman did not consent to the sexual acts but could not resist as she felt too giddy and weak from what she had consumed, said prosecutors.
The man then carried the woman back to her bedroom and placed her on the bed.
After she woke up at about 4am the next morning, she called her sister in a distressed state.
She told her employer what had happened once they returned home on Jan 8, 2020. She was taken to make a police report the next day.
Deputy Public Prosecutors James Chew, Tin Shu Min and Yap Jia Jun relied on evidence including closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage from the living room.
Last November, Justice Mavis Chionh convicted the man on the four charges after finding that the CCTV footage and the man’s own admissions corroborated the victim’s testimony.
She acquitted him of a fifth charge of sexual assault by penetration as there was insufficient evidence.
The man did not have a lawyer and conducted his own defence at trial.
On Friday, Justice Chionh asked the offender whether he had used ChatGPT to draft his submissions on mitigation. She said they cited legal cases that did not exist.
When the man confirmed he had used ChatGPT, she said that it was not a legal research tool.
“Thank you, Your Honour. I stand educated,” he replied. He later informed the court that he would hire a lawyer to run his appeal.
In sentencing, Justice Chionh said that the offender knew the victim was physically unable to fend off his sexual advances, and “brazenly exploited” this.
She said there was some premeditation as he offered the victim wine, and adjusted the CCTV camera in the maid’s bedroom such that the bed was not within view.
The offences also happened in a period when the maid was even more vulnerable, as she was left alone with her employer’s father for eight days.
Justice Chionh noted that during the trial, the man claimed that the victim had seduced him and plotted to frame him.
He alleged that the victim was framing him because she hated her employer, and wanted to get monetary compensation. The judge earlier found no evidence to support these claims.
Justice Chionh found that he was entitled to raise these matters as part of his defence, which was not conducted in an “extravagant” manner.
She therefore disagreed with the prosecution that the man’s lack of remorse was an aggravating factor.
As the man is above 50, he cannot be caned. The prosecution did not seek additional time in prison in lieu of caning.
The judge said that the deterrence and retribution that could be achieved through caning were not lost, given the offender’s lengthy jail term.
The man kept his eyes closed after the sentence was read out. He remains out on bail of S$80,000 (US$60,000), put up by two of his daughters.
For rape, the man could have been jailed for up to 20 years and fined. For outrage of modesty, he could have been jailed for up to two years and fined.
As the victim was a domestic worker, he could have received up to double the maximum punishments.
