SINGAPORE (The Straits Times/Asia News Network): When a man’s then 24-year-old intellectually disabled daughter told him that she had a crush on members of a South Korean boy band, he grew aroused, showed her pornographic videos and later asked her to perform a sexual act on him.
On Friday (Dec 23), the 60-year-old man was sentenced to seven years’ jail.
He pleaded guilty to two counts of incest on Dec 7. One of the charges was read with a section of the Penal Code, which allows for enhanced punishment where an offence is committed against a vulnerable person.
Two other similar charges were taken into consideration during his sentencing.
The man and his daughter, who is now 28, cannot be named due to a gag order protecting the woman’s identity.
Before meting out his sentence on Friday, Principal District Judge Toh Han Li noted the offender’s grooming of his daughter, his abuse of trust and the vulnerability of the victim.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Yvonne Poon said previously that the victim was born out of wedlock and grew up in the care of her maternal grandmother.
Her biological parents got married in 2002, and the victim met her father for the first time when she was 14 years old
Between 2008 and 2014, the victim saw her father about once every two years. She moved in with her parents when she was 19.
Some time around Chinese New Year in 2019, the offender showed his genitals to her and told her to massage them. The victim did as she was told.
“He did this under the pretext of educating her sexually so that she would not get pregnant by other men,” said the DPP.
Following that incident, the victim performed sexual acts on her father on at least four occasions.
In April 2020, the pair were eating together in their flat when she dipped her spoon into a dish of food instead of using the serving spoon. The father became furious and shouted at his daughter about her lack of hygiene and refused to talk to her.
Later that day, the victim told her father she was sorry, sat close to him on the living room sofa and looked at his groin. The accused inferred that she was offering to perform a sexual act on him and pulled down his pants.
After that, he told her she did a good job and reminded her to keep the incident a secret.
His offences came to light when the woman confided in her training officer at an organisation where she was volunteering.
She was subsequently assessed by an Institute of Mental Health doctor, who stated in her report that the victim understood that her father’s actions were not right.
However, she struggled to protect herself from her father’s actions because she depended on her parents as a result of her intellectual disability.
For each count of incest, offenders can be jailed for up to five years. The maximum sentence can be doubled for crimes against vulnerable victims.
