32 years' jail for serial criminal who raped daughter at knifepoint

SINGAPORE - A serial criminal who raped his then 23-year-old daughter at knifepoint less than a month after she picked him up from prison, persuaded her mother to take him in and found him a job was sentenced to 32 years' jail on Monday (July 27).

In sentencing, High Court judge Hoo Sheau Peng noted the 53-year-old's violent criminal past - he was handed jail and caning sentences for attempted murder in 2000 and for robbery with hurt in 2010.

"The accused has not learnt from his previous brushes with the law and the lengthy sentences that he served," she said.

The judge also noted that the man had made "spurious allegations" against his daughter, who is now 28, claiming that she had framed him and that she had consented to the sexual acts.

The man, who is not named due to a gag order to protect the victim's identity, cannot be caned as he is over the age of 50.

He was found guilty in June, after a trial, of nine charges relating to a series of sexual and violent offences he committed against the victim in the early hours of March 27, 2016, when they were alone at home.

The court heard that the victim, who has an older brother and a younger sister, was the only person to visit the man when he was in prison. Her parents divorced when she was young.

When the man was released from prison on March 2, 2016, she went to pick him up, accompanied by her boyfriend and a friend.

She then persuaded her mother to let the man stay in the studio flat that the two women shared until he found alternative lodgings. She also found him a job as a forklift driver.

The woman testified that when she returned home in the early hours of March 27, she found him drinking and staring angrily at the blank screen of the TV.

She drank with him for a while and then went to bed at about 3am.

The next thing she knew, he was touching her inappropriately while holding a penknife to her neck.

When she asked him what he was doing, he told her not to shout and threatened to slash her.

As she cried and begged him to stop, the man accused her of being involved in a plot with her mother and brother to send him to prison.

He engaged in various sexual acts with her after threatening to cut her throat if she did not comply.

After he raped her, she asked tearfully why he was doing this to her when she had been there for him all those years.

When she grabbed the knife from him, he punched her and tried to strangle her.

He then snatched the knife back and raped her a second time.

Later, she asked him for her mobile phone and called her boyfriend to pick her up. When he came over, she broke down and told him what her father had done.

But the father said that they had consensual sex that day. He claimed that she had in fact first seduced him two days earlier.

Justice Hoo accepted the daughter's version and rejected the man's "incredible" account.

The judge convicted him of two counts of aggravated rape, one count of aggravated sexual assault by penetration, two counts of causing hurt, two counts of criminal intimidation and two counts of outrage of modesty.

On Monday, Deputy Public Prosecutor Kavita Uthrapathy noted that the victim contemplated suicide after the rape and was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

"The offender repaid her trust, love and concern by abusing her horrifically," she said.

Defence counsel Lau Wen Jin, who was assigned under the Criminal Legal Aid Scheme, said the man had been triggered by what he thought was a conspiracy to get him into prison.

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