Warning: This story contains descriptions of assault and rape. Reader discretion is advised.

A 21-year-old jilted Singaporean man became jealous and angry after seeing the 17-year-old mother of his child potentially moving on with another man.

He punched her multiple times and stabbed her thigh with a screwdriver, before proceeding to rape her.

Gave birth in 2016

According to court documents, the man and the woman have a daughter who is currently seven years old.

All three individuals cannot be named due to a gag order.

The man had sex with the woman when he was 15 and she was 12.

The woman moved in with the man's family in 2015 after she became pregnant.

In 2016, she gave birth to the man's daughter and entered a "long-term de facto spousal relationship" with him.

She was 13 years old then.

The couple got engaged some time later, and had plans to get married once the woman was 18 years old.

Initiated a breakup

On May 19, 2021, the woman, then 17, initiated a breakup with the man and moved out of his house.

The man became emotional about this.

Confronted the woman at playground

Around two weeks later on Jul. 1, 2021 midnight, the man confronted the woman at a playground at Bukit Panjang.

The woman was with another man, who knew the couple, at the playground.

The man found out that the woman was at the playground through a friend.

He watched the woman and the other man hugging and holding hands at the playground from a nearby car park and became jealous and angry.

At around 3am, the man charged towards the other man just as the latter and the woman were about to leave the playground.

Wanted to access her phone

The other man fled the scene immediately, leaving the man and the woman alone.

The man confronted the woman and snatched her phone from her hand.

He also shouted and cried at her, asking what he had done to deserve this.

He asked the woman for her phone's password, but she refused. She also refused when he asked her to leave with him.

The man then lifted the woman off her feet and threw her onto the ground, before he repeatedly punched her face and head.

He then pulled her to a nearby multi-storey car park and led her up to the third storey.

There, he pulled her near the ledge, lifted her and threatened to throw her off the building if she did not surrender her phone password.

Ordered her to get into the vehicle and drove off

He pulled the woman to an open-air car park across the street, where he had parked his vehicle, and ordered her to get into the vehicle.

She got in and he drove off without telling her where they were going.

During the drive, the man continued demanding for the woman's phone password, slapping and punching her in the face and on the head when she refused.

The woman eventually gave him her password so that he would stop hitting her.

The man unlocked her phone, accessed her messages and grew angrier after he saw that she was chatting with other men.

Stabbed her right thigh with screwdriver

Sometime later, he stopped the vehicle at a secluded road.

He told the woman that he would disfigure her face instead of killing her and stepped out of the car to retrieve a small pouch from his boot.

He took out a screwdriver and a pair of scissors from the pouch, told the woman he was going to disfigure her so that she would not be able to find another guy in future, and stabbed her right thigh with the screwdriver.

Filmed intimate act and threatened to share online

Sometime later between 3am and 5am, he ordered the woman to undress herself, and told her he would film her with his phone and post the videos on Instagram.

Fearing for her safety, the woman complied.

She also complied with his orders for her to get out of the car, touch herself, and perform oral sex on him, all whilst he was filming her.

The man then ordered the woman to get up and turn around, before penetrating her sexually.

Court documents wrote that the woman was crying during the process.

After the man was done, the pair went back into the vehicle and the man drove off.

During the drive, the man's mother called him and he told her that he assaulted the woman and that she was bruised.

The man's uncle also called him to ask him for his location.

Arrested

The man eventually drove himself and the woman to a car park near his house, where his mother, father and uncle were waiting.

All of them went back to the man's house, where the woman told the man's mother separately that her son raped her and filmed himself doing so.

After a brief moment, the man's mother told the woman that her son has deleted the video and apologised for his actions.

She and her husband drove the woman to her mother's house after she said she did not want to go to the hospital.

There, the woman's stepfather reported the man to the police and he was subsequently arrested.

Suffering from major depressive disorder

The woman sought medical attention on the same day of the incident, Jun. 1, 2021, and was found with multiple injuries, including a 2cm by 2cm puncture wound on her right thigh.

The man was handed 12 charges ranging from rape, voluntarily causing hurt, criminal intimidation, wrongful restraint and confinement, snatch theft, and threatening to distribute an intimate video.

An Institute of Mental Health associate consultant found the man to be suffering from Major Depressive Disorder at the time of the offences, but assessed that there was no significant contributory link between the man's mental illness and the offences.

He was also not of unsound mind at the time of the offences, and was cognizant of the nature and consequences of his actions.

On remand

The man has been on remand since his arrest in June 2021.

He pleaded guilty to six out of 12 charges – one count each for rape, wrongful confinement, and threatening to distribute the intimate video and three counts of voluntarily causing hurt.

The prosecutors sought of jail term of between 13 and 14.5 years as well as six strokes of the cane, with retribution and deterrence being their primary sentencing considerations.

Lawyer claims man was heartbroken

The man's lawyer, on the other hand, pleaded for a lighter sentence, claiming that the man was cooperative from the start and admitted his actions.

He also tried to explain the man's actions, claiming that the latter felt heartbroken and betrayed when he saw the woman behaving intimately with another man.

He said the man was immature and did not know how to respond back then, but has now moved past the incident and knows that his relationship with the woman is over.

Letters from woman and the man's mother

During mitigation, the lawyer submitted letters from the woman and the man's mother, where the woman said she has forgiven the man and moved on.

The man's mother, on the other hand, wrote that his family was initially disapproving of his relationship with the woman but they took her in when they learnt of her familial troubles.

The man and the woman insisted on keeping the child when the woman became pregnant.

The man stopped accepting allowances from his parents, worked to support the woman and his child and also took night classes.

He was working as a project manager prior to his arrest.

The man's mother said her son and the woman's relationship began to sour as they both wanted to live like teenagers but were bounded by obligations to their daughter.

Despite the quarrels, the man proposed to the woman sometime in 2020 so that they could apply for a Build-to-Order HDB flat.

However, the woman announced shortly after their engagement that she wanted to leave the man and his family, and walked out of the house three days before the Jun. 21, 2021 incident.

The man's mother said while her son was not prepared for the betrayal, he knew what he did was wrong and that there was a price to pay.

However, she argued for a lighter sentence so as to not destroy her son's future.

Sentenced to jail

The judge acknowledged both women's letters, but said it provided no mitigating value to the man's culpability.

He sentenced the man, who is now 23, to 12 years' jail and six strokes of the cane on Jul. 19, 2023.

His imprisonment sentence was backdated to the date of his arrest.

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