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SINGAPORE – Three sisters thought they had found a father figure when their mother married in late 2013.
But about a year later, he began sexually abusing the sisters, who were then between 11 and 15 years old.
Two of the girls trusted each other in 2017 and their mother later learned of their ordeal. But they did not make a police report.
The man’s crimes were finally exposed in 2019 after police were alerted to a heated argument between the couple.
Following a trial, District Judge Eddy Tham found the 53-year-old man guilty of three counts of sexual abuse and sentenced him on Monday (March 22) to two years and eight months in jail.
As the man is over 50 years old, he cannot be spanked and was ordered to spend 18 more weeks behind bars instead of spanking.
He cannot be identified due to a gag order to protect the identity of the victims.
During the trial, the youngest victim testified that the man was initially “nice” to her, adding: “He always … (brought us) food … like a father.”
But this impression changed when he abused her, the court heard.
The girl had testified that she was resting on a bed in her bedroom sometime between 2014 and 2015 when her stepfather abused her.
She told Judge Tham that she stayed away from the man from then on and did not initially tell others about her ordeal. This was because he feared that the couple would separate, leaving his mother “unhappy”.
His two older sisters also testified that the man had sexually abused them.
Deputy Prosecutor Sruthi Boppana said the mother learned of the crimes in 2017 when she “stumbled upon a conversation” between the two younger girls about what the man had done to them.
The woman broached the issue with her three daughters a few weeks later and the girls told her what had happened.
The court heard that the girls decided to give their stepfather a chance and the woman said she felt “stuck.”
The DPP said they decided “to keep the matter within the family in an attempt to keep the family unit intact.”
After this revelation, the man did not bother the girls again. But the DPP said: “Incidents of abuse continued to be a nuisance that would resurface during (the mother’s) fights with the accused.”
She added: “Throughout 2018, (the woman) recalled that her interactions with the accused were limited … They fought often, especially over her drinking, and (she) then brought up the incidents of abuse. “.
On February 11, 2019, the couple were fighting in their home when someone, possibly a neighbor, alerted police and officers showed up at their doorstep. Only then did the mother inform the authorities about her daughters’ ordeal.
The man, who is represented by lawyer Luo Ling Ling, denied sexually abusing the girls.
During the trial, he stated that the girls’ mother “wanted to use the police case as a lever in the ongoing divorce proceedings.”
The man, who intends to appeal his conviction and sentence, was offered a $ 20,000 bond Monday.
For sexually abusing a child under the age of 14, an offender can be imprisoned for up to five years and fined or punished.
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