Man sexually preyed on teenage girls after sending them flattering messages, begging for nude pictures
The court heard that in addition to preying on teenage girls, AR Arun Prashanth was also a serial taker of upskirt photographs.
SINGAPORE — After befriending young girls on social media platforms such as Instagram, a 22-year-old full-time National Serviceman constantly sent them affectionate text messages.
AR Arun Prashanth also harassed them for naked photographs, or to meet in person. When a 14-year-old girl finally agreed to meet him, he sexually assaulted her in his bedroom, then asked her to visit him again and to delete their WhatsApp chat records.
But that was not all he did. Upon his arrest for his offences against the girl, the authorities found 720 upskirt photographs in his mobile phone.
On Wednesday (July 31), Arun — who is now 25 years old — pleaded guilty to seven assorted charges, including sexual penetration of a minor and committing an indecent act with a young person.
Twenty-one other similar charges will be taken into consideration for sentencing on Aug 13. He remains out on bail of S$50,000.
All of his victims cannot be named due to a court gag order to protect their identities.
‘YOU MUST KEEP IT YOUR BIGGEST SECRET’
Court documents showed that he began committing his offences sometime between 2014 and 2015, when he sexually penetrated a girl aged about 14.
The court heard that in early 2016, Arun began contacting another 12-year-old girl on Instagram. She responded to him and they exchanged mobile phone numbers.
With that in hand, he began sending her lewd text messages several times a day. He told her that her legs were “long and slender” and that she had voluptuous curves, even though she reminded him that she was 12.
While she felt harassed and tried to ignore him, she felt bad and replied at times.
He reminded her several times not to show their chats to anyone, and threatened to stop contacting her if she did. He also told her he was a police officer on at least two occasions, as he was serving his National Service with the police then.
One of his messages to the girl read: “You underage. So if we ever do it, you must keep it your biggest secret.”
After he pestered her to send him naked photos of herself, she finally relented and sent him a photo of her clad only in her bra. When he asked her to remove it, she refused to.
After the incident, the girl felt depressed and regretted giving in to Arun. She felt that she should not have even responded to his messages, Deputy Public Prosecutor Kwang Jia Min told the court.
ASSAULTED GIRL IN BEDROOM
Then in September 2016, Arun got to know another 14-year-old girl when she was added to a WhatsApp group chat called “Making New Friends”.
The next month, he began sending her private text messages. He asked for her age, then pestered her to meet up but she rejected all of his requests.
She eventually blocked him on WhatsApp, but he continued to message her on Instagram.
Eventually, on Feb 3, 2017, she texted him saying that she wanted to skip her co-curricular activities. When he asked her to visit him at his home, she agreed and unblocked him on WhatsApp to facilitate the meeting.
He hugged her when she arrived, then placed her shoes in a shoe bag in his bedroom.
While she wanted to talk to him in the living room, he led her to his bedroom, lifted her and placed her on the lower bunk of his double-decker bed. He told her to hide under the bed if anyone came home.
He then lay beside her and performed a number of sexual acts on her. She kept quiet as she was worried he would ask her more questions.
He also tried to get her to perform a sex act on him, but she did not.
When he left the bedroom, she got dressed and sent four text messages to her friend, asking her to call the police.
She then told him that her mother had discovered that she played truant, so he arranged for a private-hire car to pick her up.
The driver asked her why she was trembling, and took her to the Sembawang Neighbourhood Police Centre to lodge a police report.
Arun told the girl to delete their chat records and to keep the incident to herself. She deleted the records.
He was arrested the next day at his home, where 720 upskirt photos were found in his mobile phone. The victims have not been identified.
He had stalked one victim for at least 13 minutes, and taken photos of another victim when she was lying unconscious at the top of a flight of stairs.
