Married school teacher pleads guilty to sexually exploiting his female student
A 33-year-old teacher pleaded guilty to two charges of sexual penetration of a minor and a single charge of sexual exploitation of a young person.
SINGAPORE — He gave his student gifts, got close to her, sent sexually explicit photographs to her and even got her to lie to her parents so that they can spend time together.
The school teacher, who is a married man, also started a sexual relationship with the girl, who was 14 years old at the time.
On Thursday (Feb 6), the 33-year-old teacher pleaded guilty to two charges of sexual penetration of a minor and one charge of sexual exploitation of a young person.
Four other similar charges would be taken into consideration for his sentencing, which was adjourned to Feb 27.
By court order, the teacher and his school cannot be named to protect the identity of the girl, who is now 15.
The court heard that the student and the teacher first got to know each other in 2017, when she was in Secondary 1.
Around March 2018, the girl posted on social media that she needed a new mobile phone because her father had confiscated hers several times when she was disobedient.
The teacher saw the post and a few weeks later, he told her that he had left a second-hand iPhone 6 for her in his pigeonhole in school, along with a S$50 note.
Throughout the year, the teacher and the student kept in frequent contact, sending each other phone text messages. It started out as just messages about school work, but gradually moved towards personal issues and then more intimate topics.
The man even bought her a wrist watch as a birthday present.
Around September 2018, the man felt guilty because his wife was pregnant and stopped contacting the student, but they resumed contact on a daily basis from January to March last year when he became concerned about some family problems that the girl was facing.
The messages they sent each other soon took on sexual overtones and they began exchanging sexually explicit photographs on the man’s initiative.
The girl confessed that she liked him.
On two occasions, the teacher took the student home where they engaged in sex acts.
On one of these occasions, which was during the March school holidays, the man and the girl conspired to lie to her mother about a remedial class in school.
When the mother asked the teacher whether there was such a class, he lied to her saying there was one. He also obtained permission to pick the girl up to take her to school and back to her mother’s workplace.
However, instead of taking her to school, he drove her to his home where the girl allowed him to perform various sex acts on her.
The next month, the girl’s father found out about their relationship when he caught her using the iPhone that was gifted to her.
The father reported the matter to the school’s principal after he found messages between his daughter and the teacher that suggested a romantic relationship between the pair.
In seeking a jail term of at least three years and 14 months, Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Ho Jiayun said that the man had abused the trust accorded to him by exploiting a 14-year-old student for his own sexual gratification.
“Knowing that she took a fancy to him, he cultivated a relationship with her, plying her with gifts and attention over the course of more than a year,” DPP Ho said. “This finally progressed to sexually intimate conduct.”
He added that parents trust teachers to exert a positive influence and to have their children’s best interests at heart.
Instead, the man devised opportunities to be alone with the girl in his flat, and even deceived her parents.
“The offender is a teacher who has lured his young student into a sexual relationship for the ignoble purpose of satisfying his lust,” DPP Ho said.
