A man, who molested his tenant and threatened to kill her and her daughter, was jailed for 21 months on Friday.

Cleaner Sanusi Ahmad, 51, who pleaded guilty to molesting the 29-year-old unemployed woman while she was resting on a mattress in the living room of his flat in Chinatown with her four-year-old daughter on Sept 25. He had asked her to sleep with him and molested her when she rejected him. The woman decided to leave with her daughter.

As she was about to do so, she saw Sanusi coming out from the kitchen and flashing a 20cm-long knife. He told her to sleep with him or he would kill her and her daughter. Frightened, she left and called her boyfriend as well as the police while waiting at the void deck.

District Judge Toh Yung Cheong told Sanusi that he had committed very grave offences and could imagine how terrifying it had been for both the victim and her daughter. Sanusi, who has previous convictions for theft, gross indecency and outrage of modesty among others, could have been jailed for up to two years and/or fined for molestation. For criminal intimidation, he could have been jailed for up to seven years or more.