Man who molested teen daughter and recorded her showering gets 38 months' jail, cane

Dominic Low
The Straits Times
August 20, 2020

A 44-year-old man took advantage of his teenage stepdaughter while she was sleeping and molested her.

He even secretly recorded her showering.

For his actions, the man was sentenced on Thursday (Aug 20) to 38 months' jail and five strokes of the cane.

He pleaded guilty to three counts of outrage of modesty and one count of recording her showering without her consent.

Four other similar charges were taken into consideration during sentencing by District Judge Kan Shuk Weng.

Both the man and his stepdaughter cannot be identified due to a gag order to protect her identity.

Court documents state that the man was living in a flat with his son, the girl and her mother when he committed the offences. He had also been touching the girl inappropriately from March 2017, to March 2020.

The man struck on the night of March 5, 2017, when his stepdaughter was 11.

At that time, the girl and her stepbrother had fallen asleep on their parents' bed.

The man laid down beside the girl, slid his hands under her T-shirt and underwear, and molested her.

She woke up upon being touched but did not move as she was shocked.

After he retracted his hands, she got up from the bed and noticed him pretending to be asleep. She then went back to her own bedroom.

The man went on to molest the girl on various other occasions, including on Feb 28 and March 8 this year, when she was asleep.

Both times, the girl came to and pretended to stir in her sleep. Her stepfather would then leave the bedroom.

On March 12 this year, at about 7pm, the man decided to record his stepdaughter showering. She was 14 then.

He switched on the video recording mode of his mobile phone, and positioned it on top of the water heater in the toilet of the master bedroom.

He then told the girl to take a shower quickly as he wanted to do the laundry. While the girl initially refused, she eventually went into the toilet.

She then spotted the man's mobile phone while showering and immediately wrapped herself in a towel.

After realising that the mobile phone belonged to her stepfather and that its video recording mode had been switched on, the girl informed her mother about the incident.

A friend of the mother made a police report later that day.

Pleading for leniency on Thursday, the man said that his wife and the children are now living apart from him even as he had asked them to return to the flat.

For each of his offences, the man could have been jailed for up to two years, fined and/or caned.