Woman accused of sex with dad granted discharge

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http://thecourtroom.stomp.com.sg/sto...scharge.ht ml

08 Sep 2010

Source: The Straits Times

A WOMAN accused of willingly having sex with her father was granted a discharge not amounting to an acquittal yesterday.

The 23-year-old technical executive was charged earlier this year with permitting her 46-year-old father to have sex with her in the master bedroom of their flat in Serangoon sometime in April 2008.

The father, a freelance plumber, failed to show up in court on a similar charge that day and an arrest warrant has been issued against him. Police investigations are still ongoing. The court then placed a gag order to withhold the name of the accused.

This is the first time any woman here has been charged with such an offence – which carries a jail term of up to five years.

Mr S. S. Dhillon, who represented the accused, told reporters yesterday that his client, who no longer lives with the family, was relieved with the outcome.

He added his client has been sent for psychiatric examination.

A lawyer with almost 30 years’ practice said this was neither a case of “no further action”, nor a complete discharge.

“The target is the father. The prosecution probably needs her to be a witness against the father. Only the two of them know what happened.

“In this case, if they proceed against the father, depending on whatever the outcome, they can still have recourse to the daughter later,” he said.

Former deputy public prosecutor Tan Hee Joek, who has been in private practice since 2005, said such an order means that the accused can be prosecuted again if, for example, fresh evidence comes to light – unlike a discharge amounting to an acquittal whereby an accused person cannot be prosecuted for the same offence again.

“If there are good reasons for not prosecuting, they will drop it entirely,” he said.

Psychiatrists contacted by The Straits Times said cases involving consensual sex between adult family members are rare in Singapore. Most cases referred to them involve minors, and the whistle is usually blown by a family member.

Dr Ang Yong Guan, a psychiatrist formerly with the Singapore Armed Forces, said that in cases involving consenting adults, there is usually an imbalance of power in the relationship.

Individual counselling would help the victim build confidence and self-esteem so that he or she would not fall into an unequal relationship again, and family counselling would be important in re-establishing broken boundaries, Dr Ang added.