22-year-old man convicted of raping cousin; victim testified about being 'ignored' by family and accused of lying

SINGAPORE: A 22-year-old man who went on trial over rape and sexual assault charges against his younger cousin when she was a girl was convicted of two charges but acquitted of a third due to a lack of detail from the victim.

The man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the victim, now aged 18, contested two counts of rape and one count of sexual assault by penetration.

In a judgment released on Thursday (Jan 15), Justice Valerie Thean convicted him of one count of rape and one count of sexual assault, but acquitted him of another count of rape.

The offences he was convicted of took place between 2016 and 2018, when the victim was between eight and 10 years old.

Justice Thean said that she found the victim to be a truthful witness, and the offender not a credible one in contrast.

However, she found it "unsafe" to hold that the prosecution had met its burden of proof on the first rape charge as she was "concerned with the sufficiency of detail" in the victim's testimony for that charge.

THE CASE

The victim testified that the first incident of rape and sexual assault occurred sometime in 2013 when she was in preschool and aged about six.

The offender was four years older than her.

The victim was cared for by her grandmother at the offender's home from the time she was two months old.

At trial, the victim said the sexual assault occurred about once a week in the master bedroom.

She said she would usually be doing homework at a table in the bedroom when the offender would carry her to the bed, close and lock the door and draw the curtains.

He would then sexually abuse her and later tell her that the acts he performed were good for her. He also told her not to tell anyone about the abuse.

Sometime between 2016 and 2017, the victim told a relative about the offender touching her, and this prompted a family meeting.

According to the victim, her parents took it that her cousin had accidentally touched her. She wrote in a document called a trauma narrative: "I thought to myself that it is probably normal since they were okay with it. I wasn't angry or sad that nobody helped me, I just kept thinking it was a normal act."

After the meeting, the victim was told not to go to the third floor of the home where the master bedroom was situated. Instead, she was to remain on the first floor to study and play.

According to the victim, she was accused of lying, with her grandmother instructing her to tell everyone that she was lying. However, the victim did not comply.

After the meeting, the victim continued to go to the residence after school. Initially, she did her homework on the first floor but sustained mosquito bites and returned to work in the master bedroom on the third floor.

After this, the offender continued to sexually abuse the victim. The victim said he told her that she "better not tell anyone this time".

According to the victim's trauma narrative, the offender started "doing up to two to three times a week".

"By that time, I didn't think much of it. It became part of my life," wrote the victim.

When she and her brother told her parents about an incident where the offender hit her, her parents thought it was an accident and "took it as a small matter", said the victim.

"I was upset this time. I kept quiet, and after a while, I got used to being (ignored). I guess being ignored is normal, no help is given to me. I felt helpless, I think nobody would help me because they won't believe what I say. I did think my brother would believe me, but he was too young," she wrote.

She added that her mother would threaten to send her to childcare when she did not do her homework, and was told that childcare "gives kids the same food and it is a really bad place", so "I thought I should keep quiet so that I can continue to stay at the house".

THE SECOND FAMILY MEETING

A second family meeting occurred after the victim told someone else that the offender had touched her. According to her, he had raped her and stopped only when he had to go for tuition.

According to various witnesses, the offender was confronted, and he responded with a denial and a statement that he "wanted to jump down a building".

The victim was purportedly crying while gesturing and describing what happened. Her grandmother and the offender's mother accused her of lying.

The outcome of the second meeting was for the victim to go home with her brothers after school, instead of to the residence.

After this, she would still go to the residence to meet an uncle and his family on weekends. Sometimes, the offender was there as well.

In 2019, the victim's parents invited family members including the offender over for the victim's 12th birthday. This upset her, and she testified that her parents had not even asked her about the invitation.

She hid in her room, cried and ignored all of her birthday presents.

The victim said she did not initially know that what her cousin had done to her was wrong, only realising it was when she read a news article about a woman being raped.

This was when she was between Primary 6 and Secondary 1.

She said the events in the news article were similar to what she had experienced in her childhood, so she did a Google search on what "rape" was.

Sometime before late September 2020, the victim's mother came across the victim's rape searches on a laptop. The woman asked her daughter if she had conducted the searches, and she confirmed this.

Her mother then asked if it was related to her experiences with her cousin, and the victim agreed.

After this, the victim thought that her mother knew she had been raped.

THE FIRST FULL DISCLOSURE

On the night of Sep 28, 2020, the victim went into detail for the first time about the incidents while talking to her close friend.

She had recently stopped sharing a room with her brothers and found that, when left alone with her own thoughts, she would have flashbacks and nightmares and cry.

The victim told her friend about a comment she had heard from a schoolmate, who said that "all smart people apparently have sex with their cousins".

Her friend casually responded by asking her: "Do you have sex with your cousin?"

This upset the victim and she spent the day thinking about it. That night, she texted this friend and told her about the sexual incidents and her "horrific" 12th birthday.

Sometime in the next few days, the victim told her mother the full extent of the rape and sexual assault incidents, saying they happened frequently between 2013 and late 2017 or early 2018.

Her mother was very shocked and cried, testified the victim.

THE DISCOVERY BY HER PARENTS

The victim's parents testified that their first realisation of the true extent and nature of the sexual acts committed by their nephew on their daughter was on the night of Sep 29, 2020.

After the victim told her mother what happened, her mother texted her father.

In a series of texts, the father repeatedly asked what happened, and the mother replied: "Our childhood care for her failed badly."

The mother then told the father that the victim had been raped by her cousin since she was six, and she did not know about it until she had sex education in Primary 5.

In response, the father asked: "Why not we just cut tie(s) with (him)? He is so bad."

He also asked why his daughter was still so friendly with her cousin.

The spouses had a long text conversation where the father reacted with several exclamation marks and question marks.

After this, the victim's mother read the WhatsApp messages the victim had sent to her friend detailing the sexual abuse.

The victim's mother was upset by the severity of the described incidents and told her husband. Together, the parents encouraged the victim to lodge a police report when she was ready.

At around the same time, the victim's mother informed the offender's mother about the incidents.

Initially, the victim was reluctant to make a police report, worrying that it would ruin the relationship between her family and her cousin's family.

She said her grandmother had been upset with her in the meantime. Even at trial, the victim's grandmother maintained that she was lying.

However, the victim's father assured her that he was fine with the police report being lodged and told her to stop worrying about his relations with his sister, who is the mother of the offender.

The victim went to lodge a report with her parents on Jan 3, 2021.

DEFENCE

At trial, the offender was represented by Mr Wendell Wong, Mr Andrew Chua and Mr Andrew Ng from Drew & Napier.

He denied any sexual acts between him and his cousin, saying there was no opportunity for them to have occurred on account of his busy schedule.

He said he had tuition at the residence every day from 2013 to 2015 when he was in primary school, up to dinnertime.

When he was in secondary school, he had after-school co-curricular activities twice a week and tuition on days when he did not have such activities.

He claimed that the door of the master bedroom was misaligned and difficult to close, such that any attempt to close it completely would result in a loud bang.

He also claimed that there were adults, helpers and children in the home who were constantly moving around, making it highly improbable for the alleged acts to have gone unnoticed.

Justice Thean found the offender's response of saying he would commit suicide at the second family meeting to be "extraordinary".

While giving him the benefit of the doubt as an "exasperated 15-year-old", the judge said she agreed with the prosecution that this response was "incongruous with his defence at trial".

At trial, the offender raised for the first time that he did not have any opportunity to be alone with the victim, noted Justice Thean.

"If this were the case, it would have been a natural and easy response for (him) to say at the second family meeting that there had been no opportunity to be alone with (her) on any recent date," said the judge.

She also did not believe the defence's assertion that the master bedroom door was defective, saying the evidence provided by defence witnesses on this was materially inconsistent.

Defence witnesses also provided contradictory accounts on the frequency of the offender's tuition.

The offender had also claimed under cross-examination that there would not be "pockets of time", presumably to commit the offences, because if he ate lunch at home, it was "for a really long time".

This was followed by a half-hour shower, and the rushing of tuition work in the toilet, which the judge said was "a rather surprising allusion".

The judge also noted other contradictions in the offender's statements, such as when he said at trial that he did not consider himself close to the victim when they were growing up.

This was contradicted by his statement to the police in which he described how they were very close, playing a lot together.

His assertion on the stand that they were not close was also contradicted by descriptions of their close relationship from other relatives who testified.

The offender's mother was "key to the defence's case", said the judge. However, she found her credibility as a witness impeached due to material inconsistencies between her various accounts.

The offender will be sentenced at a later date.

The punishment for raping or sexually assaulting a minor under the age of 14 is between eight and 20 years in jail and at least 12 strokes of the cane.