Man molested daughters
The Straits Times, Oct 1, 2009
Man molested his daughters from early age
He would threaten to beat his eldest child if she told her mother .
His wife knew as far back as 1998 that he was fondling their eldest child, but did nothing about it. She was afraid of him and he had promised to change.
When she caught him doing it again two years later, he fell at the victim's feet and asked for forgiveness. The girl, then 14, wept.
But in May this year when he was caught peeping at his daughter, now 22, bathing, the family decided they had enough of his abuse.
They reported him to the police nine days later, on May 21.
The 49-year-old father of three, who suffered from alcohol dependency, pleaded guilty yesterday to eight counts, mainly of aggravated molestation, and one of intruding into a woman's privacy.
The man cannot be named in order to protect the identities of his children. His second daughter, who is now 17, was also molested when she was 10. His youngest child is now 15.
The abuse, the court heard, went even further back than those incidents.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Navin Thevar said the man began abusing the eldest child when she was 10 and continued until 2001. He and his wife had stopped having sex.
From August 1997 to May this year, he had committed 11 offences against his eldest child. He also committed four against his second daughter in 2002 when she was 10.
He threatened to beat his eldest child if she told her mother about the incidents.
In a July 1999 incident, the DPP said he forced the victim to remove her clothes before abusing her while she stood naked and cried throughout, for about 20 minutes.
In his police statements, the man, who is still in remand, said that since his eldest child scolded him after the last time he molested her, he had felt ashamed of his actions and resorted to peeping at her when she bathed instead.
He also told a government psychiatrist that he had been sexually assaulted as a child and started having problems in his marriage in 1996, when his wife began to be less intimate with him.
'He thus started turning to commercial sex workers and pornography to satisfy his sexual needs,' said the DPP.
Eight other charges were taken into consideration.
Pleading for leniency, the man, who also has a theft conviction, said he would work hard to get his family back.
District Judge Sarjit Singh will sentence him on Monday.
The prosecution is seeking a stiff sentence of more than 10 years plus caning, in view of the aggravating factors in the case.
The man crosses his 50th birthday in a few weeks, after which he cannot be caned.
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Victims want dad out of their lives
A PROSECUTOR told a court yesterday that it was clear the two victims had been seriously traumatised by the accused: their natural father.
Neither of the girls - now aged 22 and 17 - wanted the 49-year-old to be anywhere near them again.
'A large amount of irreparable damage has been caused,' said Deputy Public Prosecutor Navin Thevar, who was arguing for a deterrent sentence to be imposed.
In a victim impact statement, the younger daughter said she would not forgive the accused for what he had done to her.
'I feel very embarrassed as he is a biological father, and I also feel very disgusted with his behaviour towards me.
'I won't forgive him forever for what he did to me, and I consider that I have no father. I will never accept him in my life,' she said.
The older daughter said that throughout the years of being sexually abused, she felt 'dirty', 'disgusted' and 'ashamed' with herself.
'I also asked myself why I had to be born to him and why I had to be born a girl. I had sleepless nights and worried about myself and my two sisters' future.
'I started to distrust men, and I avoided them if possible. I cannot even trust my own male relatives,' she said.