Man, 72, gets jail for repeatedly raping underage step-granddaughter
The offences went uncovered until the girl drew a picture of the back of a human body with hands wrapped around it for an art project and told her teacher she had been sexually abused.
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SINGAPORE: A 72-year-old man was sentenced to 23 years’ jail on Monday (Jul 20) for sexually abusing his step-granddaughter over five years from when she was aged just nine.
The Singaporean man, who cannot be named due to gag orders protecting the victim, pleaded guilty to three charges of aggravated statutory rape.
Another 18 charges were considered in sentencing.
The court heard that the offender was in his 60s at the time of the offences, while the child was between nine and 13. She called him “grandfather”.
From 2018 to July 2023, the man sexually assaulted the victim multiple times in his car and at a flat.
In 2018, the victim routinely visited her step-grandfather once or twice a month. He would ask her to accompany him to a mall and promised to buy her what she liked.
He did this only to her and not to any of the other grandchildren, because he wanted to get her alone for sex acts.
He would drive the girl to a multi-storey car park where he sexually abused her, rewarding her after each instance by buying her art supplies or other items she liked.
Sometimes, the girl tried to resist him, but he told her he would buy her an item she chose if she complied. The girl would then give in, even though she was uncomfortable with the sexual acts.
The elderly man also asked her to keep their sexual encounters a secret.
The abuse went on for years until April 2024, when the girl was doing an art project in school.
THE ART PROJECT
The theme for the project was “struggle”, and she drew the back of a human body with hands wrapped around it.
When the art teacher asked the victim for the story behind the work, the girl revealed that she had been sexually assaulted by her step-grandfather.
The teacher alerted the victim’s mother, who later took her to lodge a police report.
Deputy Public Prosecutors Santhra Aiyyasamy and Ariel Tan sought 23 years’ jail, but did not ask for imprisonment in lieu of caning because of the “totality principle”.
This principle requires a court to take a last look at all the facts of a case to assess if a sentence is just and whether it could be crushing.
The prosecutors said the sexual acts escalated from molestation to rape, with the man becoming more emboldened with time as he attempted to rape her when she 11 to 12.
They added that there was clear evidence of planning and premeditation in this case, including getting the victim to be alone with him in isolated areas and grooming her.
Sometime between 2020 and 2021, he even found an opportunity to take her to his flat when the rest of the family had gathered elsewhere for dinner.
The victim is traumatised by the offences, frequently experiencing flashbacks, said the prosecutors.
They added that the reporting of the incidents resulted in a strain between her immediate family and her extended family, with her extended family members including her cousins ceasing their communication with her.
For each count of aggravated statutory rape, the man could have been jailed for between eight and 20 years. He cannot be caned as he is above the age of 50.
Source: CNA/ll
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