Ex-convict loses touch with daughter 14years ago. Now all he wants is to see her again
HE did not have the money to raise her, so he gave up his daughter for adoption when she was just 3 years old.
Now, he wants to find out where she is and see her again.
Mr Yusoff Ali Said Ali, 46, appeared to be a man of regrets.
Last June, the former drug addict was sentenced to seven months' jail after conspiring with four other people to cheat Overseas-Chinese Banking Corporation in a cashback scheme.
Speaking from his two-room rented flat in Clementi, Mr Yusoff, who is now working as a stall helper, admitted he could have done better.
He should not have mixed with the wrong company, he said. He should not have become a drug addict.
He could have remarried and been a better father.
Letting go of his child has been a painful mistake. Mr Yusoff said he thinks about his daughter Lenny Liana every day. He does not have a photo of her, but said she should be 21 now.
He had her with a girlfriend he met in 1985, shortly after he divorced his ex-wife in 1984.
The girl was born in June 1986.
'My girlfriend left me and I had to raise her myself,' he said. 'But I gave my baby up for adoption when she was 3, as I had no money.'
At that time, his ex-wife had custody of their two children from the marriage.
Through a friend, Mr Yusoff was introduced to a woman named Normah Abdullah in 1989.
Mr Yusoff recalled that Madam Normah was happy to see his daughter and he felt he could trust her.
'I felt she could give my daughter a better life,' he said.
So he contacted a lawyer and signed some adoption papers.
He claimed that Madam Normah and her family did not give him their address. The agreement was that he could visit her every Hari Raya, but he would have to arrange it through their mutual friend.
In 1993, Mr Yusoff said the mutual friend told him Madam Normah could not be contacted or found.
HOOKED ON HEROIN
It was also around that time that MrYusoff was hooked on heroin.
'I mixed with bad company and did drugs,' he said, adding that he has been in and out of drug rehabilitation centres (DRCs) about five times for taking heroin.
'But I kept thinking about my daughter and wondered if she was all right.'
Then, in 1998, when he was reading the newspapers in a DRC, he saw an obituary of Madam Normah.
'I wondered, 'Who's taking care of my daughter now?' Would she have mixed with wrong company like me?'
In looking for his daughter, MrYusoff has also asked his other daughter for help.
Madam Lenny Suriana, 25, said she was angry with her father for giving up her half-sister for adoption. Now a mother of four young children , Madam Lenny Suriana said she was about seven years old at the time.
'I could not understand it,' she said. 'I have missed her every day since. He asked me to look for her but I don't know where to start. She might have already changed her name.'
Mr Yusoff insisted that he is not looking to take his daughter back.
'I just want to see her and find out how she's doing. Even if I can only see her from a distance, that's fine.
'I just want her to know her biological father.'