'Rape' girl's 5-year silence

A teenager who claims her stepfather raped her when she was nine kept the allegation secret for five years because she feared it would destroy her family, a court heard yesterday.

In video testimony recorded between January and June last year, the girl, now 17, recalled how her stepfather, a 38-year-old noodle stall cook, called her from the top of their bunk bed to join him in his lower bunk in their Kwun Tong home after her mother left for work.

Rapes occurred about 'every other day' for 10 days in July and August 1989, the High Court heard.

The stepfather - who has pleaded not guilty to two charges of rape - would then leave for work and the girl would clean the house.

She said she did not know what was happening, only that it was painful when her stepfather 'disturbed' her. When she realised what had happened two years later, she thought of suicide.

She confided in a schoolmate five years after the alleged attacks and told her mother at the urging of her friend. She had originally refused because she felt she might 'destroy the family'.