Phnom Penh’s Chbar Ampov district police will send a 27-year-old suspect to the municipal court on Thursday after he was detained for allegedly raping his 13-year-old step-daughter two days earlier.

The arrest was made after the underage victim’s mother filed a complaint to the district police.

The girl, her mother and the suspect worked as recyclable waste collectors, according to Chbar Ampov deputy police chief Mao Soeuth. They lived together at a pagoda.

Both the victim and suspect, he said on Wednesday, had been questioned over the accusation at the police station in order to impose “further legal action” on the latter.

The girl was immediately returned to her mother after the interrogation, Soeuth said.

The police report revealed that at about 10pm on Sunday, the suspect brought the girl to a guesthouse where he purportedly raped her three times.

Looking pale and jaded after the incident, the girl’s mother asked her what happened. The girl divulged what her dad had done the night before, prompting the mother to go to the police station to file a complaint on Tuesday.

The suspect was arrested in the afternoon of the same day.