SINGAPORE – For almost two years, a man manipulated his underage niece into a relationship with him, having sex with her and even using bondage equipment on her.
The 13-year-old girl had tried to end their relationship on at least eight occasions, but her uncle would guilt-trip her each time and she failed to break up with him.
When the girl began dating her teenage schoolmate, the uncle got jealous and threatened to upload her nude photos and videos onto a pornographic site.
On Aug 3, the 38-year-old man was sentenced to 21 years’ jail and 16 strokes of the cane. He pleaded guilty to six charges, including statutory rape, sexual assault and threatening to distribute intimate images of the girl.
The offender cannot be named due to a gag order to protect his niece’s identity.
Deputy public prosecutors Chin Jincheng and Joelle Loy said the offender kept up a facade of being nothing but a caring uncle to the victim.
“In reality, the accused blatantly and repeatedly violated her parents’ trust,” the prosecutors said.
“Capitalising on his easy access to her, he robbed her of her innocence by taking her virginity when she was 13 years old and habituated her to all kinds of illicit sexual activity with him.”
According to court documents, the offender is the victim’s paternal uncle, and he had a close relationship with her father, who is his oldest brother.
Before she turned 13, the girl had seen her uncle only during family gatherings and on special occasions.
In September 2022, the offender took the victim to Suntec City to celebrate her 13th birthday. They met several days later for supper, during which the victim shared about her relationship with her ex-boyfriend.
The girl soon grew closer to her uncle, visiting him at his home after school, where he would sometimes tutor her in Mandarin.
On one occasion when she was at his home, he touched her private parts over her clothes and asked if that was what her ex-boyfriend had done to her. Despite being shocked by his behaviour, she did not react or object to it, said the prosecutors.
From October 2022, the man and the girl saw themselves as a couple, exchanging romantic messages daily.
During a family trip to Genting Highlands in November that year, he performed a sex act on her while they were alone in his room.
In the same month, the girl’s parents gave her permission to sleep over at his home, where they had sex.
The prosecutors said the pair continued to have sex around four times a week, with the man using sex toys and bondage equipment such as a blindfold, a feather and rope on the girl.
The pair avoided behaving intimately with each other when family members were around.
At the time, the offender was in a relationship with someone else, whom he later married in May 2024.
Girl started relationship with schoolmate
In June 2023, the girl’s parents allowed her to go on a staycation with her uncle at a hotel near Clarke Quay. There, they drank alcohol and performed sex acts on each other.
The prosecutors said the man and his niece continued having sex in 2024, with the man even joking about committing incest with the girl.
That year, the girl grew close to a schoolmate, identified in court documents as A1, and got into a romantic relationship with him.
Sensing that the girl started to behave differently, the offender questioned her, and she told him about her new relationship.
The offender was dismayed, and urged her to end her relationship with A1.
In May 2024, when the girl was 14, the offender performed a sex act on her as a form of punishment for her interactions with A1. The man told her that she had made a mistake and needed to pay for it.
During their relationship, the man took videos of the victim with her consent. This included a 13-second video of the girl performing a sex act on him in July 2024.
The man also had access to at least 30 nude videos of the girl, which she had sent him.
On Aug 5, 2024, the girl told her uncle she would not be ending her relationship with A1 despite him pestering her to do so. The man threatened to leak her nude photos and videos on a pornographic site.
Investigations found that he did not act on his threats.
The next day, the victim grew tired of her uncle’s manipulation and told her teacher about her intimate relationship with him.
A police report was lodged, and the man was arrested on Aug 7, 2024.