SINGAPORE: When she was 13, a girl's biological father began sexually abusing her.
Over three years, the teenage girl endured the abuse until her father threatened to tell her husband about the acts. The accused's crimes then came to light.
The 40-year-old man was sentenced to 17-and-a-half years' jail and 16 strokes of the cane on Thursday (Mar 5).
He earlier pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual penetration of a minor under 16, and two counts of exploitative sexual penetration of a minor above 16 but below 18. Another nine charges, mostly of a similar nature, were considered for his sentencing.
A gag order has been imposed on the identity of the accused and other details that could identify the victim, now around 22 years old, to protect her.
In an earlier court hearing, it was revealed that the victim was kept in the dark about her parents' identities.
Born out of wedlock in 2003, the victim was raised by her maternal grandmother, who pretended to be the victim's mother
The family members pretended that the victim's parents - who married in 2009 - were her siblings.
The victim only learned the truth about her birth parents in primary school after chancing upon her birth certificate.
The abuse began in 2017, when the victim was around 13.
Her father asked her to demonstrate a sexual act she had done with an ex-boyfriend. After this, his advances became more audacious.
He began molesting her and violating her in other ways, generally at night when the family was asleep.
He would also promise the victim things in return for the abuse, such as additional pocket money or permission to go out with friends.
In the midst of the acts, the victim wrote a letter to her father asking him to stop. She set out how she had been "overjoyed" to learn that the accused was her father as she yearned to feel "real father love".
She said that she forgave him for not raising her and watching her grow, but then he had "torn" her heart into "millions of pieces" by his subsequent abhorrent acts.
"It really hurts knowing that you don't actually care nor truly (love) me. It really hurts. You always lie saying that you will stop but you don’t. Don't you think I have feelings too," she wrote.
"I never want my daughter to ever feel this torture."
After receiving the letter, the accused desisted from the acts for a while and resumed them afterwards.
By Aug 23, 2020, the victim, who was then 16, had married. Court documents did not elaborate on this development.
However, this did not stop the accused from taking advantage of his daughter.
On Aug 31, 2020, the accused attempted to open the victim's locked bedroom door but failed. Angered at a lack of attention from the victim, he began to punch and kick the walls.
The next day, he tried to molest his daughter, but she pushed his hands away, prompting the man to punch a door.
He then asked what would happen if he were to tell her husband about the sexual acts.
"The victim understood the accused to be threatening to disclose their sexual relationship to her husband," court documents stated.
That day, the victim revealed her father's acts to her mother, who confronted and hit the accused.
"The accused told the victim's mother that it takes two hands to clap, implying that the victim was also to blame for their sexual relationship, after which he left the house," court documents added.
The victim then told her husband that she had been "raped" by her father, and he called the police. The accused surrendered himself to the police and was arrested at about 5pm that day.
The victim's mother filed for divorce after the case came to light.
Upon examination by a psychiatrist, the accused was observed to prioritise his sexual needs above their impact on the victim.
The prosecution had called for at least 18 to 19-and-a-half years' jail for the accused, along with 16 strokes of the cane.
"This is an unfortunate case where a father not only failed to protect his daughter, but is the very person who sexually exploited, groomed and corrupted her," said Deputy Public Prosecutors Phoebe Tan and senior counsel Wong Woon Kwong.
"The accused's misdeeds only came to light when the victim finally confided in her mother and in her husband. Despite this, the accused callously retorted that 'it takes two hands to clap', showing no remorse," the prosecutors added.
Prosecutors also referred to the extent of harm on the victim, who felt angry and betrayed.
"In the period after the accused's arrest and the disclosure of the sexual abuse to her family, the victim was upset, cried a lot and even expressed urges to self-harm," they said.
She also expressed guilt over the legal consequences for her father's actions.
Passing the sentence on Thursday, Justice Dedar Singh Gill took into consideration the severe abuse of trust, the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, the harm caused to the victim and the period of offending as aggravating factors.
He briefly addressed whether the charge of exploitative sexual penetration already encompassed an element of abuse of trust – a point disputed by both the prosecution and the defence. The defence, led by lawyer Raphael Louis, contended that treating abuse of trust as a separate aggravating factor would amount to double-counting, since the charge itself already presupposed such an element.
On this, Justice Gill said that there could be relationships that are exploitative but did not involve an abuse of a position of trust.
"It must follow that where the evidence discloses not only an exploitative relationship but also an abuse of trust, the abuse of trust can be taken into account as an aggravating factor for the purposes of sentencing," the High Court judge ruled.
Mr Louis initially sought 14 years and two months' jail and 10 strokes of the cane, but eventually revised this to 11 years and seven months' jail while maintaining the same number of cane strokes.
The defence lawyer cited the accused's act of surrendering himself, his full cooperation with the police and his plea of guilt as mitigating factors.
The accused has since reflected on the gravity of his conduct and is genuinely remorseful for the pain and emotional trauma inflicted on the victim and those around her, Mr Louis said.
But Justice Gill disagreed with the defence's proposed sentences.
"The sentences put forward by the accused, individually and in total, are manifestly inadequate and betray a woeful lack of appreciation of the abhorrent nature of his offending conduct and the harm caused to his own biological daughter," Justice Gill said.
For exploitative sexual penetration of a minor between 16 and 18, the accused could have been jailed for up to 15 years, fined or caned.
For sexual penetration of a minor under 16, he could have been jailed for up to 10 years, fined, or both.
