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Family friend molested 7-year-old
He is sentenced to six years' jail and 14 strokes of the cane after
molesting girl four times and exposing himself to her A MAN who was a trusted family friend exposed himself to a
seven-year-old and molested her while telling her stories.
Between November last year and February this year, Gopalan Reghunathan,
an Indian national and a general worker in a factory here, molested the girl four
times and exposed himself to her once.
Gopalan, 41, who is married with two teenage daughters in Kerala,
India, stayed overnight at the family's flat whenever he visited them.
He had 'the gift of the gab' and was so trusted that the girls' parents left
him in charge of their two younger daughters while they took their eldest one
to a clinic one night in February.
That, said District Judge Tey Tsun Hang, turned out to be a 'gross
misjudgment of his character'.
While the parents were away, Gopalan took the seven-year-old to the master
bedroom and masturbated in front of her. Then he lifted her dress, pulled down her panties
and molested her, restraining her when she tried to run away.
He first molested her on Nov 13, the eve of Deepavali.
He asked her to go outside with him to the staircase.
There, he put her on his lap and molested her while telling her a story.
He also molested her on Christmas Eve last year.
After the February incident, she had a fever on and off for three weeks.
She did not eat well and lost weight.
'She looked dull and was not interested in playing with her sisters and
the neighbour,' said the mother.
Once, the girl drew a picture of a man with a beard and a sword, saying it was
Gopalan and that she wanted to kill him.
The judge sentenced Gopalan to six years' jail and 14 strokes of the cane on a total of
six charges, taking four into consideration in sentencing.
He said he bore in mind the successive acts of abuse, the repulsive and revolting acts, the
distress caused to the parents and the extreme psychological damage inflicted on
young and helpless victims.
Gopalan had also insulted the modesty of the girl's 13-year-old sister by asking her to
translate the words for a woman's private parts from Malayalam to English last December.
The teenager had felt guilty, the girls' 37-year-old mother said in her victim-impact
statement, because she felt that, had she spoken out earlier about Gopalan, she might
have been able to prevent him from molesting her younger sister.
She cried for more than a month. Her school work was affected, she became
hot-tempered and afraid to be alone or go to the toilet.
Gopalan, said Judge Tey, had reciprocated the parents' warm hospitality and
unsuspecting trust with abuse and a series of depraved acts.