A 51-YEAR-OLD man who started engaging in consensual sex acts
with his girlfriend's niece when the latter was just 13 was
jailed for 12 years yesterday.
The man, a maintenance worker and cleaner at a mosque, pleaded
guilty to two charges of statutory rape and one charge of oral
sex.
Three charges of sexual assault against a minor, a charge of
statutory rape and a charge of committing an indecent act with a
child were taken into consideration.
He was 48 and she was 13 at the time of the first offence; the
acts occurred between March 2008 and July 2009. Now 16, she is a
waitress and cannot be named to protect her identity.
The man, who has seven children from three marriages, started a
relationship with the aunt in 2006 and later moved into her rental
flat.
The girl also moved into the flat in April 2009. She treated the
man like her uncle.
The court heard that he liked to watch pornographic videos in
the flat together with the girl and her aunt. He also showed her
videos of himself having sex with another person.
In March 2008, he and the girl started engaging in physically
intimate acts after she drank alcohol he had bought for her
and her aunt.
One day, while her aunt was out, they became intimate and she
agreed to perform oral sex on him. In June 2008, they had sex
for the first time after the aunt fell asleep following a drinking
session.
They stopped having sex in July 2009. In December that year, the
girl learnt that her aunt was considering marrying the man. Afraid
her aunt would be making a mistake, she told the woman about the
sexual encounters.
Pleading for leniency, the man's lawyer, Mr Shashi Nathan,
argued the sex acts had been consensual and had not involved any
force.
However, Deputy Public Prosecutor Edmund Lam said the man had
corrupted the girl by showing her pornography and teaching her to
be familiar with sexual acts.
(Taken from The Straits Times, Friday, May 20 2011, Page
C12)
