SINGAPORE: Four women were accused in court on Friday (Feb 21) of covering up for a man who allegedly molested a toddler at a preschool, with three handed charges related to reformatting a closed-circuit television (CCTV) system that captured the offence.
Details of the women, including their names and ages, were redacted from court documents.
A gag order was imposed on their identities along with the location of the alleged offence to protect the victim, who was around two years old at the time.
Two of the women had their charges uploaded into the court system on Friday morning, while the charges involving the other two surfaced in the afternoon.
At least one of them seems to have held a high-ranking staff position at the preschool.
The four women received between one and three charges.
Besides the reformatting of the CCTV system, the other charges are for intentionally omitting to give any information about the alleged molest, and deleting a video clip capturing the offence from a WhatsApp chat. All of the alleged offences took place in November 2023.
No indication of plea was taken from any of them. All of their cases will return to court for a further mention on Mar 21.
As for the man accused of molest, an offender with the same name was found in the court system. This accused faces eight counts of outraging the modesty of a person under 14. He was previously reported to be a worker at the preschool.
He is due to plead guilty on Mar 18, according to the court system.
If convicted of intentionally omitting to give information concerning an offence one is legally bound to give, an offender may be jailed up to six months, fined, or both.
For obstructing the course of justice, a person may be jailed up to seven years, fined, or both.
