Public Prosecutor v JDA

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Ong Luan Tze
• Judgment Date: 13 September 2024
• Neutral Citation: [2024] SGDC 224
• Court: District Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: District Arrest Case No. 916738 of 2022 & Ors, Magistrate’s Appeal No. 9127-2024-01/02
• Hearing Date: 02 November 2023,03 November 2023,08 November 2023,09 November 2023,10 November 2023,21 November 2023,04 March 2024,05 March 2024,29 May 2024,03 July 2024
• Citation: [2024] SGDC 224
• Year: 2024
• Plaintiff Counsel: Ms Gladys Lim (Attorney General's Chambers)
• Defendant Counsel: Mr Terence Tan and Ms Ong Hui Wen (Drew & Napier LLC)
• Published date: 19 September 2024

District Judge Ong Luan Tze:

The Accused claimed trial to four charges involving the outrage of modesty against his stepdaughter. These charges covered a 10-year period from 15 March 2005 to 2015, with the salient details as follows:

Charges under s 354 of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 1985 Rev Ed) (“1985 Penal Code”)
1st charge (DAC 916738/2022)	Sometime between 15 March 2005 and 2006, in an address along Bury Road (“Bury Road address”), the Accused touched the victim’s chest over her clothes.
2nd charge (DAC 916739/2022)	Sometime between 15 March 2005 and 2006, in the Bury Road address, the Accused touched the victim’s vagina with his fingers, and made contact between his penis and her vagina.
Charge under s 354(1) and punishable under s 354(2) of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed) (“2008 Penal Code”)
3rd charge (DAC 916740/2022)	Sometime between 15 March 2009 and 15 August 2010, at the carpark of 43 Jalan Loyang Besar and in a motorcar, the Accused touched the victim’s bare thigh and breast over her clothes.
Charge under s 354(1) of the 2008 Penal Code
4th charge (DAC 916741/2022)	Sometime in 2015, in an address along Upper Aljunied Lane (“the Aljunied unit”), the Accused touched the victim’s thigh and breasts.

At the conclusion of the trial, I was satisfied that the Prosecution had proven these four charges beyond a reasonable doubt. Accordingly, I found the Accused guilty and convicted him.

Having heard the Prosecution’s address on sentence as well as the Accused’s mitigation, I imposed the following sentences:

Charge	Sentence imposed
1st charge DAC 916738-2022	12 months’ imprisonment
2nd charge DAC 916739-2022	18 months’ imprisonment (consecutive)
3rd charge DAC 916740-2022	16 months’ imprisonment (consecutive)
4th charge DAC 916741-2022	10 months’ imprisonment + six weeks’ imprisonment in lieu of three strokes of the cane.
Global sentence	34 months’ imprisonment + six weeks’ imprisonment in lieu of caning

The Accused appealed against both the conviction and sentence, and is currently out on bail pending appeal.

Statement of Agreed Facts (“SOAF”)

The undisputed facts were encapsulated in a Statement of Agreed Facts¹, the salient portions of which are set out below.

The victim was a female born on 17 October 1996. At the commencement of the trial, she was 27 years old. Her biological family consisted of:The victim’s biological mother PW1;The victim’s biological father PW3;The victim’s twin brother PW6; andThe victim’s older brother.

The Accused was 49 years old at the commencement of the trial. He was married to PW1 in October 2003 and they divorced in January 2020.

The Accused and PW1 had a total of nine children, as follows:Triplets born in April 2004 (“the triplets”), including PW4;Twins born in November 2012 (“the twins”); andQuadruplets born in October 2013 (“the quadruplets”).

On 20 May 2021 at about 7.50 p.m., the victim lodged a police report against the Accused.²

Background facts: The victim’s schooling arrangement

The victim was enrolled in Rosyth Primary School from 2003 to 2008, and later in CHIJ St Theresa’s Convent Secondary School from 2009 to 2012. In 2021, she started schooling at ITE College West.³

Background facts: The victim’s living arrangement

Between 15 March 2005 and 14 March 2009, the victim and her biological family, as well as the Accused and his family, and the victim’s maternal grandmother (“grandmother”), lived at the Bury Road address. This was a government property rented in the name of the Accused’s parent’s company.⁴

Sometime after 15 March 2005, renovations were done to the Bury Road address. After these renovations, the victim shared a bedroom with her grandmother. This room was connected to the master bedroom by a connecting door.

Between 15 March 2009 to 15 August 2010, the victim lived with her biological family, and the Accused and his family, at a unit in 43 Jalan Loyang Besar, Singapore.⁵ During this time, the Accused drove a motorcar (“Honda Odyssey”) which was registered in the name of the Accused’s mother.⁶

Between 16 August 2010 to sometime before 30 November 2016, the victim lived with her biological family, the Accused and his family, and the grandmother, at the Aljunied unit. This was a two-storey unit in a block of flats which was rented in the name of the victim’s biological father, PW3.⁷

Sometime during the period from 16 August 2010 to 30 November 2016, both families ran a café business, Bartak, at the Aljunied unit. The business was registered in the names of the victim’s biological parents (PW1 and PW3) with the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority from 25 June 2010 and its registration expired on 25 June 2017.

By 2016, both families had moved out of the Aljunied unit.

The Prosecution’s Case

In seeking to prove the charges against the Accused, the Prosecution called the following witnesses.

Evidence from the victim

The victim confirmed that she had lodged a police report against the Accused on 20 May 2021, informing that “18 years ago, [she] was sexually assaulted by [the Accused] a couple of times”.⁸ While she was not able to remember when exactly the incidents happened, she recalled that it started when she was in primary school, and when she was staying at the Bury Road address.⁹ Her evidence was that the Accused had touched her at her private parts on a few occasions and that apart from the Bury Road address, it had also occurred when she was staying at 43 Jalan Loyang Besar and the Aljunied unit.

Incident in the Aljunied unit

The last time this occurred was sometime in 2015 when she was staying at the Aljunied unit. While her bedroom was on the second level with her two brothers, her mother had asked her to move downstairs to sleep with her and the victim’s step-siblings in the bedroom on the ground floor. This was because her mother wanted her to help out in the kitchen in the morning, as well as to help take care of her younger step-siblings. As such, the victim would sleep in the ground floor bedroom with her mother and her step-siblings. In particular, she slept on a mattress which was closest to the bedroom door. The Accused would sleep in the living room. She recalled that there were a few nights when the Accused would come into the bedroom and touch her on her private areas like her breast and thighs.

On the last occasion this happened, the Accused came into the bedroom and while squatting down, touched the victim on her breast. The victim described the touch as soft and being in a circular motion, and she felt it over her clothes. She also felt touches on her thigh, and this was on her skin. She opened her eyes and saw the Accused squatting in front of her. She moved and the Accused stopped what he was doing and left. The victim confirmed that the Accused had touched her with his hands.¹⁰

The next morning, one of her step-sisters, PW4, asked the victim if the Accused had touched her the night before, and told the victim that she had seen what happened. The victim answered in the affirmative but told PW4 not to tell anyone because she was afraid the others might think she had made this up. However, sometime later, PW6 also came to ask her about this incident and she told him what happened. Her mother later came to ask her about it too, and she also told her mother what happened. Her mother told her not to tell her father PW3 about it as she did not want to have any problems at home. The victim did not tell her father, but her father later came to know about this and asked her if she wanted to lodge a police report. The victim replied in the negative as she was thinking about her step-siblings who were very young then, and she did not want them to grow up without a father.¹¹

When asked why she thought that her family members might not believe her if she told them what happened, the victim explained that she was not close to any of them. Her mother did not like her since young, and she was not close to her father, as her mother did not like her talking to her father. PW6 was close to her mother so the victim did not confide in him, and her older brother was usually not at home.¹²

About one month after this last occasion, the victim moved out of the Aljunied unit with her father PW3.¹³

First incident at the Bury Road address

The victim recalled one night when she was in primary three or four¹⁴, when the Accused entered her bedroom via the connecting door to the master bedroom. The victim was sleeping on the top bunk of a double decker bed when she felt the Accused touch her on her breast area with his hands, softly and in a circular motion. This was over her clothes. She moved, after which he stopped and left. Her grandmother, whom she shared the bedroom with, was in the living room watching television at that time.¹⁵

When the Accused touched her, she was confused and knew that it was wrong because her mother had told her before that she should not show her private areas to other people. By private areas, the victim understood this to mean her chest and the area between her thighs. She did not know why the Accused touched her.¹⁶

Second incident at the Bury Road address

The victim recalled another night when she was also in primary three or four, when she was sleeping on the top bunk. The Accused came into the bedroom and tapped her on her shoulder to wake her up. He then signalled for her to follow him and she duly did so. She went to the master bedroom via the connecting door. The Accused asked her to take off her pants and panties and to lie down on the bed. The victim pulled down her pants and panties although she did not take them off. She then lay down on the bed. The Accused took off his boxers and took his penis to rub on her vagina in an up and down motion....