President Halimah calls for review of law excluding rapists over 50 from caning: 5 worst cases

With President Halimah Yacob calling for a review of the law that allows men over 50 years of age to avoid the cane, The Straits Times looks at some of the most heinous intra-family rape cases to reach the courts in recent years.

None of the men can be named owing to gag orders protecting the victims’ identities.

1. Father rapes three of five daughters

A 45-year-old man who sexually abused four of his five daughters over a 14-year period, raping three of them, was sentenced to a jail term of 33 years and two months, and given 24 strokes of the cane on March 18, 2022.

A High Court judge said this was one of the worst cases of rape and sexual assault, and that the accused had “destroyed the cherished values of the victims’ sanctuary and turned their home into a living hell”.

The man began sexually assaulting his oldest daughter in 2004 when she was six or seven years old, and extended his abuse to his other daughters over the years. Only the youngest girl was spared.

In 2018, he threatened to stop one of his daughters from schooling if she did not have sex with him every month.

2. Cleaner, 55, sexually assaults all 3 daughters

He sexually assaulted all three of his daughters over 14 years, targeting each daughter when she turned 11 or 12 years old. He was jailed for 33 years in March 2021, when they were aged between 13 and 26.

As a result of years of abuse, the two older daughters have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. The second also has major depressive disorder and will need psychological therapy in the future.

They did not tell anyone about the sexual assaults because they were scared of their father, who had warned them against doing so.

The abuse came to light when the youngest daughter, then 12, told her teacher that her father had suggested he wanted to rape her. The teacher then filed a police report.

3. Man rapes daughter while wife fights cancer

The 44-year-old father of three raped his daughter, his second child, on multiple occasions while his wife was undergoing treatment for lymphoma.

He was given 24 years’ jail and 24 strokes of the cane on Aug 8, 2022. The victim was 17 when her father was sentenced.

After he began molesting the girl in May 2019, the abuse escalated to rape and other penetrative sexual acts in September that year. She pretended to be asleep during the sexual assaults.

She did not report her father as she perceived the family was financially dependent on him. The teenager also did not want to worry her mother during her treatment.

4. Man rapes daughter after fengshui master’s advice

A store assistant raped his 11-year-old daughter after he was told by a fengshui master in Malaysia that he would face a life-threatening mishap that could be averted only if he had sex with a virgin.

The offences were committed sometime between October and December 2018.

The man was 50 when he was sentenced on Oct 18, 2021, to 23 years’ jail after pleading guilty to one charge of aggravated statutory rape and one charge of aggravated sexual assault by penetration.

The sentence included additional jail time in lieu of caning, as he cannot be caned due to his age.

5. Man rapes daughter, forces son to rape mother

A 41-year-old sound technician who sexually abused his daughter for six years and forced his teenage son to rape his own mother was sentenced to 29 years’ jail and 24 strokes of the cane on Oct 4, 2021.

Prosecutors described the case as being “unprecedented in its complete and perverse desecration of all familial ties by the accused, against his biological children and their mother”.

He raped his daughter in her room in September 2017 when she was 13. She told her older brother their father was raping her, but he did not tell anyone because he was worried about being beaten and did not want to ruin the family’s reputation.

One night in 2018, the man’s wife became drunk and fell asleep after drinking with him. He told his son, who was then 15 or 16, to have sex with his mother, who was partially unclothed on the bed. The boy refused but complied after his father sternly repeated his instructions.