Man first to be convicted for stalking under harassment law
Reuters file photo
SINGAPORE — For more than three years, he hounded an ex-lover, insisting on sending her to and from school, and demanding that she send him nude photos of herself.
When the girl tried to avoid him by blocking his number on her phone, he distributed fliers in her neighbourhood of her in the nude and posted similar photos on social media platforms of the school she was attending.
On Thursday (June 2), the 26-year-old man was convicted of one count of unlawful stalking under the Protection from Harassment Act (POHA), in what prosecutors described as “one of the most serious cases” of the offence in Singapore. Another similar charge will be taken into consideration for his sentencing while he was also convicted of criminally intimidating the victim and committing a rash act that endangered the victim’s brother’s life.
The man is not named to protect the victim’s identity.
Noting that the man will be the first offender to be sentenced under this section of the Act since it came into force in November 2014, Deputy Public Prosecutor Sheryl Janet George urged the court to take into consideration that his punishment will set a precedent for future cases.
In seeking a sentence of 12 months’ jail, she described this an “extremely egregious case of stalking”, adding that the man’s acts were precisely why the “unlawful stalking” statute was enacted.
In a high-profile stalking case before the POHA was enacted, Amy Chua, who was found to be suffering from schizophrenia and had stalked former journalist Joanne Lee throughout the latter’s four-year career with Singapore Press Holdings, was fined S$4,000 in 2011. She was dealt with under the Miscellaneous Offences Act.
In the present case, the man and the victim, who was then 16, had a brief sexual relationship in 2013 when they were classmates in the Institute of Technical Education.
After they broke up, the offender continued his romantic advances. He insisted on accompanying her to and from school every day and threatened to inform her parents about their sexual relationships if she did not go out with him.
The victim confided in a lecturer who intervened and the man dropped out of school. From then on, he held on to the belief that the victim had ruined his life as her complaint drove him to drop out.
But he continued hounding her, making repeated demands for her to send him nude photos of herself. When she blocked his number on her phone, the man printed fliers showing her nude photos, accompanied by harassing messages that she had “messed up his life”. He put these fliers up at public areas of her block and dropped them into letter boxes too.
On one occasion when he was caught in the act by the victim’s brother, the man drove off while the latter sat on the front bonnet of the car, causing him to be flung off. The brother scraped his limbs, chin and scalp and suffered minor head injuries.
Prosecuted for this act late last year, the man continued pestering the victim, forcing her to write a letter pleading for leniency, or he would post more nude photos online.
When the victim asked him to stop, she was forced to “apologise” by writing “I promise not to rebel again” 200 times.
Even after the victim went to polytechnic last year, the harassment did not stop. The man uploaded obscene photographs of her to her school’s social media platforms to threaten her into talking to him.
According to a victim impact statement read out in court on Thursday, the girl said she is now afraid to leave home alone, and often suffers from insomnia and suicidal thoughts. Her mother, who used to work as a production officer, also had to resign to accompany her to and from school.
“He followed me almost every day ... I feel traumatised because of him. I lost my friends after (he) posted pictures on the Internet ... I am living life in fear of him going against me. I just want him out of my life,” she wrote.
The man will be sentenced on June 17.
For unlawful stalking, he faces up to 12 months’ jail and/or a fine of S$5,000.
