11-7-2023 (SINGAPORE) A 68-year-old man from Singapore has been sentenced to 12 years’ jail for raping his 11-year-old granddaughter. The man, who cannot be named due to a gag order imposed by the court to protect the victim’s identity, had taken his granddaughter to a secluded staircase after buying durians, where he kissed her without her consent and forced her to engage in a sexual act. The incident caused “serious emotional and psychological harm” to the girl, who kept replaying what her grandfather did to her in her head and had nightmares of him raping her. She would also hurt herself and became afraid of older men of her grandfather’s age.
The man pleaded guilty to one charge of rape, with eight other charges for outrage of modesty on the same victim from 2019 to 2021 taken into consideration for sentencing. In the prosecution’s submissions, Deputy Public Prosecutors Michelle Tay and Lee Da Zhuan noted that the man occupied a position of trust and authority over his granddaughter and deliberately exploited it for his sexual gratification.
The victim had been visiting her grandfather and step-grandmother at their flat regularly on Sundays with her mother, stepfather, and four stepsiblings. The man is her maternal grandfather, according to court documents. The incident occurred on July 10, 2020, after celebrating his wife’s birthday at a restaurant. While the rest of the family headed home, the man took his granddaughter to buy durians and then violated her at a secluded staircase.
The incident only came to light around six months later when the girl told a counsellor what had happened. She had been feeling angry about the sexual offences but was not able to confide in a trusted adult. The school counsellor then contacted the Child Protection Service of the Ministry of Social and Family Development, and made a police report the next day.
In court, the prosecution sought a sentence of 12 years and 12 strokes of the cane. However, since the man is above 50 years old, an additional sentence of six months in lieu of caning was sought. The man’s defence counsel sought a lower sentence of at most 10 years’ jail, but the judge sentenced the man to 11-and-a-half years’ jail, with an additional six months in lieu of caning.
