SINGAPORE — Making use of the fact that he is godbrother to his victim and also her childhood friend, a man sought to abuse his godsister’s trust in him and tried to rape her after convincing her to stay and drink with him in his room.

When she tried to struggle and scream for help, the man forcibly covered her mouth, threatening to suffocate her and repeatedly threw her onto his bed. He also told her that she could leave only if she agreed to have sex with him.

On Thursday (Dec 14), the 24-year-old Malaysian man was sentenced to seven years’ jail with four strokes of the cane after he pleaded guilty to a charge of performing a sex act on the victim.

Two other charges for using criminal force to touch her chest area and attempting to rape her were taken into consideration during sentencing.

Both persons cannot be named under a court order to protect the victim’s identity. 

As children, the man and the victim got to know each other around 2012 because they had stayed in the same orphanage in Malaysia. They eventually became godsiblings and had the same godmother.

They had not been in contact with each other since 2013 until around April last year, when the woman decided to visit Singapore for a holiday and to find a job, court documents stated.

The court heard that she had been living in Malaysia with their godmother, while the man had worked in Singapore as a kitchen crew member and had stayed in a rented room within a flat.

Since the godsister had not been to Singapore before, their godmother reached out to the man and put the two in contact with each other. This prompted the man to invite his godsister to stay with him in Singapore.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Tan Pei Wei said that she accepted the invitation because she trusted him and wanted to save money while she looked for work.

UNCOMFORTABLE LIVING ARRANGEMENT

When she arrived on June 15 last year, her godbrother told her that they would share his bed and that she should not leave his room because he would get in trouble with the other tenants or landlord.

Since she had nowhere else to sleep, she agreed but slept near the edge of the bed to maintain some distance from him.

However, he told her to sleep closer to him and then touched her waist and shoulder. She told him to stop because she did not like to be touched.

Afraid to fall asleep, she made a video call to her boyfriend in Malaysia and told him that she found her godbrother’s behaviour “discomforting”.

Her boyfriend then arranged for her to move to his friend’s place the next day.

THE SEXUAL ASSAULT

On the afternoon of June 16, she lied to her godbrother that she would be leaving to return to Malaysia.

Upon hearing this, the man suggested that they drink together before she left. She agreed, thinking that this meeting would be the last time they saw each other.

However, when she tried to leave after having enough to drink, he tried to pull her towards the bed so that she could sit next to him.

Again, she resisted him on account of her dislike for being touched, but her godbrother then asked if they could have sex.

She immediately said no. The man then decided to throw her onto the bed by force.

When she screamed, he forcibly covered her mouth with his hand and threatened to suffocate her. Despite her repeated struggles, she could not escape from him and found herself pinned down on the bed.

The man then proceeded to molest and sexually assaulted her.

The court heard that he repeatedly asked her for sex, but was rejected each time. He also told her that she could leave after she had sex with him once.

He later admitted that he was “forcing” his godsister to have sex with him, DPP Tan said.

During the incident, the woman managed to discreetly answer a call from her boyfriend, who heard her crying and asking her godbrother to let her go.

The woman’s boyfriend then called her godmother to get in contact with the man, since he suspected that something was amiss. In turn, the godmother phoned her godson repeatedly, until he left his room to pick up the call.

He lied that his godsister had already left, but the godmother did not believe this and demanded that the call be turned into a video call.

The man then told his godsister to keep quiet, but she quickly ran out of the room and left the flat.

A few hours later, at around 8.35pm, the man sent her several WeChat messages to apologise and asked for her forgiveness and to not report the matter to the police.

However, the woman later made a police report that night. Investigations showed that she suffered pain in her private parts and bruises to her jaw.

‘VERY SERIOUS OFFENCE’

In delivering his decision, District Judge Lim Tse Haw agreed with the sentencing framework put forth by the prosecution and said that there was an abuse of trust on account of their childhood friendship.

He added that even though the man had spared the victim of having to relive the trauma in court by pleading guilty, there was still the serious charge of attempted rape to be considered.

“I would like to tell the accused that what he has done is a very serious offence,” District Judge Lim said.

“Just ask yourself how you would feel if someone would do the same thing to your sister? That just shows the seriousness of what you have done.”

For committing digital sexual penetration without consent, the man could have been jailed for up to 20 years and fined or caned.