Mum jailed for not reporting son who sexually assaulted sister

A mother who failed to alert the police after she saw her son sexually assaulting her daughter was sentenced to four years and six months’ jail on Feb 22.

She had known about him sexually abusing her daughter since the girl was five years old.

Instead of alerting the authorities, the woman merely reminded him that she was his younger sister.

When the girl got pregnant, the mother, who feared that the baby was her son’s, took her to Malaysia to try and get an abortion. It later turned out that he was not the baby’s father.

On Jan 16, the 45-year-old woman, who cannot be named due to a gag order to protect the victim’s identity, pleaded guilty to three charges, including two under the Children and Young Persons Act.

Before handing down the sentence, District Judge Kenneth Chin said that the mother had been derelict in her duties, adding: “She was in a position to do something but did nothing.”

Stressing that the victim was reliant on her mother for protection, the judge said that the woman had failed in her parental duties.

In earlier proceedings, Deputy Public Prosecutor Niranjan Ranjakunalan said the woman, her son – who is referred to as B2 in court documents – and her daughter, were living together in a two-room flat. The woman and the girl’s father are divorced.

In 2010, the mother walked into the kitchen of the flat and saw her son, who was then 13, and her daughter, then five years old, naked.

She asked her son what he was doing, but he did not respond. She later told him that the girl was his younger sister and that he “should not do such a thing to her”.

Some time that same year, the victim was taking an afternoon nap in the flat while B2 was watching pornographic videos on the computer.

Feeling aroused, he approached his sister and sexually abused her.

Later that day, the mother saw stains on her daughter‘s underpants while she was showering her and asked her son if he had sexually abused his sister. 

When he denied this, the mother again reminded him that the girl was his younger sister and that he “cannot do such a thing to her”.

The prosecution had said that despite knowing as early as in 2010 that B2 was sexually abusing his sister, and that she was at risk of further sexual abuse by her brother, the mother failed to take steps to protect her daughter from that risk.

She did not regularly check with B2 and her daughter on whether the sexual abuse had stopped.

The mother also failed to ensure that the siblings did not share a bed, added the DPP.

In fact, in 2017, the mother told her son, who was 20 years old then, to sleep on the same bed as her daughter, who was 12.

That same year, B2 committed statutory rape against his sister in the flat.

While he was sexually assaulting her, the mother woke up from her sleep, lifted a blanket and saw her son on top of her daughter.

The mother asked her son what he was doing, but he did not answer. She then reminded B2 that the girl was his younger sister.

Later that year, B2 again committed statutory rape against the victim while their mother was sleeping in the same room.

Shortly after, the siblings got into an argument, which woke their mother up.

When she saw them together, she reminded B2 again that the girl was his younger sister and asked if he was not afraid of the consequences.

When the girl missed her period in October and November 2017, the mother got her to take a home pregnancy test.

The girl tested positive.

The mother asked B2 if he had done anything to the victim, adding that she hoped he was not the father of the baby. B2 did not reply to this.

She subsequently took the victim to a clinic to confirm the pregnancy.

She was advised to lodge a police report and take her daughter to the hospital for a full examination.

However, the mother did not do so as she was afraid her son would be arrested.

Instead, she took the girl to a clinic in Johor Bahru for an abortion.

When the doctor declined to perform the procedure as the foetus was more than eight weeks old, the mother decided that the daughter would keep the baby.

The offences came to light when the victim’s school contacted the mother in January 2018 as the girl did not turn up for class several times.

The woman claimed that her daughter was unwell and requested that she be withdrawn from school.

When the school said it needed a doctor’s letter to confirm that the victim was not well enough to attend school, the mother admitted that the girl was pregnant and that her brother was the father.

The school informed the Ministry of Social and Family Development’s Child Protective Service, and the police were alerted.

The DPP had said then that the girl’s pregnancy was terminated in February 2018, and that further investigations, including a paternity test, revealed that the baby’s biological father was not B2, but someone else referred to as B3.

B3’s age was not revealed in court, but the prosecution said the victim met him online in 2017, and that her sexualisation as a result of her repeated sexual activities with B2 contributed to her engaging in sexual acts with B3.

B3 was sentenced to eight years’ jail and six strokes of the cane for his offences, including having sex with the girl when she was below 14 years old.

For his offences such as statutory rape, B2, a diagnosed paedophile, was sentenced to 11½ years’ jail and seven strokes of the cane.