SINGAPORE, Sept 28 — A young woman who never got to know her biological father because he was in jail for drug offenses decided to reach out and connect with him.
However, as reported in The Straits Times (ST), during the fourth meeting, the father raped her.
Yesterday, the 47-year-old man was sentenced to 16 years in prison and 12 strokes of the cane by the High Court after pleading guilty to charges of rape, drug possession, and drug use.
The court also considered five additional drug-related charges during sentencing. The man will serve an extra 753 days as he committed these offenses while under a remission order according to ST.
Due to a gag order, he cannot be named to protect the identity of the now 23-year-old victim, who was raised by her maternal grandparents. She did not meet her biological father until 2019, as he was incarcerated during her childhood.
From 2017 to 2019, she connected with her sister, which led her to seek out her father. She visited him in prison twice in 2019 with her sister and uncle. After his release on remission in March 2021, she visited him at his mother’s flat in October 2021 with her one-year-old son, where nothing inappropriate happened.
Their fourth meeting occurred on November 4, 2021. The victim, accompanied by her son, met her father and a relative at a café before going back to his place to see her grandmother. During the visit, she mentioned to her grandmother that she was a single mother, which led the grandmother to advise her not to discuss this with her father.
When the father inquired about their conversation, they dismissed it, and he later insisted on talking privately in the bedroom.
Behind closed doors, the man sexually assaulted the victim.
According to prosecutors, the victim said she felt angry, disgusted and embarrassed but did not know how to react. She also did not report the rape. She feared that her whole family would learn about the incident, and she didn’t want to be the cause of her father’s return to prison.
ST reported that on Feb 26, 2022, after an argument with her maternal grandparents, she revealed that her father had raped her.
A group of the victim’s maternal relatives went to the man’s apartment to confront him, but in the end, they called the police instead.
Police arrested the man on March 1, 2022, after which he was released on bail. Then, on September 6, 2022, officers from the Central Narcotics Bureau found drugs in his apartment.
During the sentencing, Deputy Public Prosecutor Tay Jia En stated that the man had betrayed the trust his daughter had placed in him.
“The victim was always curious about who her father was, and when she was just getting to know her father, he committed a wholly unexpected and unspeakable offence against her,” the prosecutor was quoted as saying.
He pointed out that even after serving significant prison time for drug use, the man showed no signs of remorse.
The man’s lawyer, Lum Guo Rong from the Public Defender’s Office, said that his client deeply regretted the harm he had caused his daughter.