SINGAPORE: A board and council member of a religious organisation offered to take the 11-year-old son of his friend out for sporting activities, suggesting that the boy stay at his place for “convenience”.
When the father of the boy suggested that his daughter also follow, the self-proclaimed religious man said that he could not have a female staying over at his home on the grounds of his religion.
When the boy stayed over, he was molested and sexually assaulted, with some of the acts filmed. He later told his father that he had been “raped” and the man was arrested.
The Singaporean offender, now 66, was sentenced on Tuesday (Sep 16) to a jail term of 13 years and three months. Of this, nine months were in lieu of caning because the law exempts offenders above the age of 50 from caning.
He pleaded guilty to three charges of molestation, sexual assault by penetration and producing child abuse material. Another four charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.
The man cannot be named due to a court order protecting the victim’s identity. Details of his home and the religious organisation of which he was a member were also not disclosed in court documents.
THE CASE
The court heard that the offender was introduced to the victim’s father sometime in 2021.
In 2022, the offender got to know the victim and found out that he liked outdoor and sporting activities.
He volunteered to take the boy out for these activities and met the boy together with his father and sister for meals or gatherings.
In March 2022, he volunteered to teach the boy boxing and football, as well as to take him out for outdoor activities.
He planned to do this over a few days that month and suggested to the victim’s father that it would be more convenient for him to take the boy out if he stayed over at the offender’s home.
The victim’s father agreed and suggested that his daughter join them, since she was also interested in the proposed outdoor activities and could watch over her brother.
However, the offender turned down this suggestion, saying he was a religious man and could not have a female staying at his home.
Between Mar 6 and 12, the 11-year-old boy stayed over at the offender’s home on most days. He was taken to adventure parks or to take part in football games, boxing or obstacle courses.
In the charges taken into consideration, court documents showed that the offender molested the boy multiple times and recorded himself doing so. He also took 40 photographs of the boy’s private parts. The boy did not know what happened because he was asleep during the offences.
In 2023, the offender asked the victim’s father for permission to take the boy to Malaysia for outdoor activities such as kayaking and jet-skiing.
The victim’s father agreed, partly because the man held himself out to be a pious and religious man, and both the victim and his father trusted him.
On Jun 17, 2023, the offender picked the boy up, intending for him to stay at his home before they headed to Malaysia early the next day.
When the boy got to the offender’s home, he played with a football before showering and lying on a mattress that had been placed on the floor of the guest room.
The boy, then 12 years old, used his mobile phone until he fell asleep.
Around 2am, he woke up to the sensation of being hugged. He knew it was the offender, since there was no one else in the house, but he ignored this.
The offender molested the boy and kissed him before sexually assaulting him.
Feeling “frozen”, the boy pretended to be asleep, the prosecutor said.
When the offender eventually left the room, the victim grabbed his phone and went to the toilet at about 4.15am to send a text message to his father.
He wrote, “I need (you) to pick me up”, and added that the offender “was raping me in my sleep”. The offender was not eventually convicted of rape charges.
At about 5am, the boy’s father saw the messages and immediately arranged to fetch his son.
He picked the boy up at about 6.10am while the offender was still asleep. The offender was arrested after a call for police assistance was made.
His devices were seized and found to contain pornographic content, including child abuse material involving young males. There were also multiple nude photos and videos of the victim, which he had taken when the boy was asleep during his sleepover in March 2022.
During investigations, the offender claimed that he had taken the photos and videos of the victim due to pornography he had watched online.
He claimed that he was “copying” some of the sexual acts he had seen online in molesting the boy.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Dhiraj G Chainani sought 12 to 14 years’ jail for the man, along with an extra jail term of nine months in lieu of caning.
He said that this was a case of a man who was “outwardly pious, so strict in his religiosity that he forbade any female from staying the night in his home”.
“Yet, behind closed doors, he revealed a markedly different self: a man driven by perverse intent, who consumed child pornography involving young males before turning his predatory attention to a young child who trusted him,” he added.
“The accused’s grave offences must be met with a firm response,” he continued. “Where innocence has been defiled and trust so callously betrayed, justice must speak with a voice that is both unflinching and unmistakable.”
