Man gets 12-and-a-half years' jail for sex attacks on own daughter

Jail for man who started sexually assaulting daughter when she was 10

He sexually assaulted his own daughter on at least three occasions - twice when she was 10 and another time when she was 19.

For his offences in 2005 and 2014, the man, 51, was sentenced to 12 years and six months in jail in court yesterday.

He cannot be named to protect the identity of his biological daughter, who is now 21.

The part-time handyman pleaded guilty to three charges - one for carnal intercourse against the order of nature and two for using criminal force to outrage his daughter's modesty.

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Four other charges, two relating to outrage of modesty and two concerning sexual exploitation of a child, were taken into consideration for sentencing.

Yesterday, the court heard that the man sodomised the girl in October 2005, after picking her up from school.

She was only 10, and no one else was home then.

He attacked her a second time later that month.

AGAIN

About a decade later, on Oct 12, 2014,he struck again, touching the girl's private parts and performing a sexual act while lying next to her on her bed.

His daughter, who was then 19, made a police report the next day and revealed that her father had sexually assaulted her before.

The man was arrested about a week later.

In court yesterday, Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Agnes Chan said that the acts were pre-meditated as they has taken place when no one else was home.

She said that the young and vulnerable girl acted with absolute trust and obedience, and had dutifully followed her father's instructions while he carried out the offences in 2005.

After the second offence in October 2005, the girl had "innocently queried" her father as to whether "all fathers did such sexual acts on their daughters".

She said: "As the victim's biological father, the accused's duty was to provide for, and protect his daughter. Instead the accused blatantly exploited and abused his position, as well as the trust and authority which has been reposed in him as a father."

He had been "emboldened" by his daughter's "misguided silence" and repeated his behaviour, which then impelled the victim to report the matter to the police, DPP Chan said.

In his mitigation, the man's defence lawyer, Mr Gino Hardial Singh, said that a psychiatric report from the Institute of Mental Health stated that his client had suffered from an acute stress reaction around the time of the 2005 offences.

It was during that time that his client's wife had run away from home and was found to be having an extramarital affair.

The report also said that his client might have had mild depression at the time of the 2014 offences, which was the same year the man went through a divorce.

Mr Singh said: "(My client's) judgement and appreciation of his actions at the material time was, at least to some extent, clouded by the stress he was undergoing."

NO EXCUSE

However, DPP Chan said: "Any mental state or marital issues do not in anyway excuse his reprehensible conduct to his daughter.

"The victim in this case was also conditioned to suffer in silence for the fear of defying her own father."

In the girl's impact statement, she said she lived life under stress and fear while living with her father.

The statement said: "I felt sad because my own father was doing this to me and I always hoped to seek help but I had no courage to, given my timid nature and fear for my safety...

"The scar that my father has left on me is irreversible."