Sex predator admits assaulting 11 children including daughter, granddaughters, nieces
AI generated
SINGAPORE - Over three decades, a man sexually assaulted 11 young girls: his daughter, his son’s two daughters, four nieces and four other children.
The victims were between the ages of five and 10 when he started preying on them, prosecutors told the High Court on July 24.
The man and his wife ran an enrichment centre from 1997 to 2021, and before that, he conducted tuition lessons at home.
The four other victims were children who attended the centre or were tutored by the man.
He raped his daughter in 2005 when she was 15 years old. He told her not to tell anyone because the family would split up, and it would be her fault.
In 2023, after sexually assaulting his seven-year-old granddaughter, he told her that if she told anyone, she would not be his favourite grandchild.
The man, who is now 70 and has a rare blood cancer known as myelofibrosis, faces a total of 33 charges for various sexual offences committed against the 11 victims.
On July 24, he pleaded guilty to 10 charges in relation to six of the victims.
These include one for rape, one for sexual assault by penetration, four for committing an obscene act involving a child, one for showing pornography to a child, two for unnatural sex and one for outrage of modesty.
The remaining 23 charges will be taken into consideration when he is sentenced on Sept 7.
The man, who uses a wheelchair, cannot be caned as he is above 50 years old. He cannot be named due to a gag order to prevent the victims from being identified.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Jiang Ke-yue sought a jail term of 32 to 36 years for the heinous offences.
“He’s a danger to children,” the prosecutor said, citing a psychiatric report which stated the man has paedophilic disorder.
The prosecutor noted the man had been imprisoned twice for sexual offences, including a jail term of two years and two months imposed in 2020 for sexually abusing three sisters at the enrichment centre.
The man started preying on his granddaughters two years after he was released from prison in 2021, he added.
It was after the granddaughters revealed to their mother what the man had done to them, that the man’s daughter disclosed her own abuse.
The man, who has two sons, admitted that he began sexually assaulting his daughter in 1997 when she was six to seven years old.
He would molest her while they were in the front seat of his van.
She was confused by his actions, but he told her he was “sayanging” her, a term meaning to show affection. She did not think anything was wrong as he was her father.
He also sexually abused her in her bedroom or in the master bedroom when his wife was not home.
The girl, who was afraid the family would split up, did not tell anyone what he had done.
He stopped sexually abusing her in 2005 after the rape.
In 2023, the older granddaughter, then seven years old, was sleeping in a room when the man locked the door, while the rest of the family was outside.
The man, who was then 68 years old, showed her a video of a man and woman having sex before sexually assaulting her.
That year, he molested the younger granddaughter while they were watching TV.
On Aug 4, 2023, the younger girl told her mother the man had touched her.
When the woman asked if this had happened to other children, the older girl disclosed what the man had done to her.
The sisters’ mother then lodged a police report.
One of the nieces was sexually abused between 1995 and 1996 when she was nine to 12 years old.
She went to the man’s home for tuition, and would stay over on Fridays to play with the man’s children, who were her cousins.
Once, when she cried, he gave her $50 and told her not to tell anyone what had happened.
The girl later came up with excuses not to go for tuition.
One of the aunts later confronted the man, and he apologised to his niece.
Another victim attended enrichment classes from 2006 to 2012. She was six years old when he pulled her close to him and molested her.
The sixth victim, who attended the centre in 2010, was 10 years old when she was molested at the water cooler.