A 74-year-old Singaporean man was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail on Friday (15 Mar) after pleading guilty to molesting his eight-year-old granddaughter.
The man cannot be named to protect the identity of his granddaughter, who is now 10 years old.
The court heard that the man repeatedly molested his granddaughter while she stayed over at his place for weekends between January and September 2020. The victim and her two brothers would regularly visit their paternal grandfather, with all three children sleeping in the same bedroom as their grandparents, as per the report.
The grandfather shared a bed with the victim, while his wife slept on the floor with their two grandsons. Sometime in January 2020, the man molested his granddaughter while sleeping with her.
The inappropriate touching occurred almost every weekend during the sleepovers, with the victim estimating that it happened at least once a month. In September 2020, the man pulled up the girl’s shirt and molested her again.
The abuse came to light when the victim told her father about the incidents. The girl’s father then confronted his own father, who admitted to the acts.
The girl and her father opted not to file a police report at that time, choosing to instead put the incident behind them and focus on moving forward with their lives, according to the prosecution, the report added.
Despite initially deciding not to make a police report, the girl eventually disclosed the abuse to her school counselor during a guidance program about cyberbullying.
The prosecution sought a three to four-year jail term for the man, citing the prolonged abuse of trust, the victim’s age, and the skin-on-skin contact involved in the molestation.
The man, who was present at the hearing with his daughter, eventually accepted the charges against him.
The penalties for molesting a minor in Singapore include a jail term of up to five years, a fine, caning, or a combination of these punishments. In this case, no caning was sought as the man was above the age limit for caning.
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