Man convicted of sexually assaulting girlfriend's daughter in van and at home
Selina Lum
The Straits Times
Jan 19, 2026
A 53-year-old man was convicted by the High Court on Jan 19 of sexually assaulting his girlfriend's daughter at home and in a van parked at cemeteries.
The victim was 10 to 11 years old when the offences were committed between February 2021 and February 2022.
She found the courage to tell her mother about the sexual abuse in December 2021.
But the woman did not believe the victim when the man denied the allegations, and the abuse continued.
The offences finally came to light after the victim broke down and told her older half-sister about the assaults.
This led the victim's father to take her to make a police report on Feb 3, 2022.
During the trial, the victim testified that her mother scolded her for making accusations against the man and told her to stop lying.
The man, who is stateless but was born in Singapore, faced four counts of sexual assault by penetration, two counts of outrage of modesty and one count of sexual exploitation of a child.
He cannot be named under a gag order imposed to protect the victim's identity.
Justice Aidan Xu found the man guilty of all seven charges on Jan 19 after a trial that began in April 2025. He will be sentenced at a later date.
The man lived with the victim, her mother and younger brother in a one-room rental flat.
The children shared a mattress in the living room, while their mother and the man slept in the bedroom.
The victim testified that in February 2021, she woke up to the man touching her under her clothes as he sat on the edge of the mattress.
She also testified about the various occasions in a rented van when he committed sex acts on her and made her perform a sex act on him.
The man, who was represented by lawyer Teo Choo Kee, claimed in court that he could not have abused the girl in February 2021 because he moved in only in April 2021.
He also claimed that he had no opportunity to commit the offences in the van.
The couple would drive the van to cemeteries at odd hours for work, with the victim and her brother accompanying them.
When they spent the night there, the man slept in the driver's seat, the woman in the front passenger's seat, and the two children on a small sofa placed behind the driver's seat.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Tay Jia En said these claims were contradicted by other evidence.
He sought to impeach the man's credibility, pointing out discrepancies between his testimony and his statements to the police.
For instance, the man told the police in video-recorded interviews that he had accidentally touched the victim on multiple occasions, but in court, he made no mention of any touching.
On Jan 19, Justice Xu accepted that there were material inconsistencies between the man's testimony and his account in the video-recorded statements.
"What these inconsistencies then led to was that the accused could not be believed," the judge said.
As for the girl's testimony, the judge concluded that despite some inconsistencies, it was clear, detailed and sufficient to convict the man.
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