24 years’ jail for man who raped daughter after lover goaded him; woman given 22 years

SINGAPORE – A man repeatedly raped his 11-year-old daughter after being goaded by his lover, a foreign domestic worker he had met online, to commit sexual acts on the girl throughout one night in 2023.

On Oct 27, the American man, 54, who cannot be named due to a gag order protecting the victim’s identity, was sentenced to 24 years’ jail.

He pleaded guilty to three charges of statutory rape and a charge of perverting the course of justice. Another 12 charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.

For her role in instigating the man to sexually abuse his daughter, Shiela Marie Ibales Albao, 33, a Filipina, was sentenced to 22 years’ jail.

She pleaded guilty to three charges of abetting the man to commit the rapes. Another 11 charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.

The sexual assaults took place on March 17, 2023, between about 8.30pm and 8.50am the next day.

Both sentences included an additional one-year term in lieu of caning, after Justice Aidan Xu agreed with the prosecution that there was a need to compensate for the lost deterrent effect of caning.

The man cannot be caned as he is above the age of 50, while Albao cannot be caned as she is a woman.

The victim’s parents separated in 2019. She lived with her mother and maternal relatives on weekdays and stayed with her father on weekends.

In 2022, the man and Albao began a sexual relationship after meeting through a dating app. Albao would visit him at his rental apartment on Sundays on her days off. The American told his daughter Albao was his girlfriend and asked her not to tell anyone about the relationship.

On days they were apart, the couple often exchanged sexually charged and deviant messages about how they wanted to have threesomes with their future child and to engage in bestiality.

On the evening of March 17, 2023, a Friday, the victim was at her father’s apartment as part of their regular arrangement, while the man and Albao exchanged sexualised messages about the girl.

Albao told the man she wanted him to send her a photo of the victim performing an indecent act on him. He suggested challenging the victim to accomplish a series of acts to win the “bet”.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Wong Shiau Yin said the pair knew this would appeal to the victim’s competitive nature.

The man got the victim to carry out the indecent act after showing her a message from Albao, who said she “bet 50” the girl could not do so.

He sent Albao video clips of the act recorded with his mobile phone. When Albao asked if the girl said anything, he replied: “She likes that she won the bet.”

After the man said he should have asked the girl to perform oral sex on him, Albao issued another challenge to the victim, who was told she would win $100 if she carried out the act.

The man again sent Albao the video he recorded.

The man performed more sexual acts on the girl – including instances where she was made to carry a karaoke set above her head – and sent the video recordings to Albao.

Albao sent over voice messages congratulating the victim for winning $400 and complimenting her for doing a great job.

After the girl went to bed, Albao encouraged the man to carry out more acts. He then raped and sexually assaulted the victim while she was sleeping.

On May 4, the victim told her form teacher about the abuse.

As part of a plan by the police to arrest him, the man was told the victim and her mother were at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, and that he needed to be there.

Sensing something was amiss, he sent a voice message to Albao telling her to remove her WhatsApp profile picture, which showed her performing a sex act on him, and not to send him any messages until he texted her.

He then deleted all his communications with Albao from his phone and told her to do the same, as it was damning evidence.

The man was arrested that day, while Albao was nabbed the next day.

He refused to provide the passcode to his devices and initially denied committing any sexual acts on the victim. However, Albao had not deleted the evidence from her phone.

When the man was confronted with the videos and photos, he claimed he could not recall doing any of these acts. He attributed this to undiagnosed Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, a head injury, and alcoholic blackout.

A psychiatric evaluation found he understood the wrongfulness of what he did to the victim.

In her victim impact statement, the girl said she feels trapped and unable to escape from the situation.

The prosecution said she developed stress-related twitches and had panic attacks, and came close to committing suicide and engaging in self-harm.

The man’s lawyer, Ms Sugenya Manogaran, noted in mitigation that he had pleaded guilty to his offences. 

Albao’s assigned lawyer, Ms Sofia Bakhash, argued that while she had encouraged the acts, she was not physically present when the crimes were being committed.