DPP Ng wrote in his sentencing submissions that the role of a father in a child’s life ought to be a protector, provider and parent, but the accused abused his biological daughter’s trust for sexual gratification.
The prosecutor wrote: “He would be in prison for less time than the victim has had and will have to live with these memories of her own father.
“Having acted so callously against his own daughter to satisfy his own perverse desires, the accused must now bear the consequences of his actions.”
I had to read this about 4 times to come up with something that made sense.
It might be clearer if we add a few dashes:
He would be in prison for less time than the victim has had - and will have - to live with these memories of her own father.
I originally inserted commas, but I believe dashes give a better representation of how you would say it.
The writer is describing the time up till now plus the future time that the daughter will live with her memories. I believe the DPP is making the point that her “sentence” of having to live with the memory (i…e. the rest of her life) is longer than his sentence in prison.
When I read this the first few times, it seemed that the “and” divided the sentence into two parts:
He would be in prison for less time than the victim has had.
[He] will have to live with these memories of her own father.
This doesn’t make sense, but you don’t realize it until the very end.
Rather than dividing the sentence, it seems like the intent is to link the two verbs “has had” and “will have”. That’s why I emphasized above that “and” links the verbs.