Paedophile gets 5 years’ jail, 6 strokes for sexually exploiting his goddaughter
The court heard that the offender had been trusted by the girl's parents to take the six-year-old home from school.
SINGAPORE — A diagnosed paedophile was fined S$2,000 in 2015 for masturbating in front of two young girls, but it later emerged that he also molested his goddaughter that same year.
Her father, the man’s friend, trusted her into his care. But he also took explicit photographs of the six-year-old girl, copying them onto a hard disk and masturbating to them for his sexual gratification.
On Monday (Feb 10), the 36-year-old man, who is hearing-impaired, was sentenced to five years’ jail and six strokes of the cane for his actions. He pleaded guilty to molestation and committing an obscene act with the girl.
He cannot be named due to a court gag order to protect the victim’s identity.
The court heard that he picked the girl up from school every day and took her home, bringing her food at times.
Sometime in 2015, he took her shopping at Toa Payoh Hub after such an errand. When he felt the urge to urinate, he took her to a handicapped toilet with him.
“After the accused urinated, he suddenly became sexually aroused and felt the urge to masturbate. He instructed the victim to remove her clothes and she complied,” Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Colin Ng told the court.
The man then took three obscene photos of the girl’s naked body and private parts using his mobile phone, before masturbating. The girl kept silent as she did not know what her godfather was doing.
It was only in May 2017 that the man’s girlfriend found the photos in his laptop. Immediately recognising the girl’s face, she confronted her boyfriend and demanded that he delete the photos.
When he refused to, she decided to tell the girl’s parents about it. They initially did not believe her but became furious when she sent the photos to them.
After confronting the man, he begged them not to lodge a police report. Upon hearing this and wanting to protect his daughter’s privacy, the girl’s father — who is hearing-impaired and mute — decided not to do it.
The man’s girlfriend ended up reporting it to the authorities, and he deleted the photos and discarded the hard disk after finding out.
DPP Ng sought the sentence imposed, describing it as a “case of a menacing paedophile who has demonstrated a proclivity for committing sexual offences against youths and minors”.
“He has admitted to having sexual attractions to young females aged between 10 and 12… he has a habit of viewing pornography and masturbating to sexual thoughts of young females,” the prosecutor added.
The man was assessed to have a 65 per cent chance of reoffending in the next 19 years, according to an Institute of Mental Health report.
His lawyer Amarjit Singh Sidhu asked for three years’ jail instead, saying that his plea of guilt was “indicative of his remorse and guilt” and that “he has let his close ones down”.
Mr Singh also raised the issue of caning, telling District Judge Hamidah Ibrahim that the man has had abdominal surgery.
When the lawyer added that the man had not circulated the photos and kept them “for his own consumption”, the judge replied: “Somehow, that sounds even more troubling.”
For molesting a minor, the man could have been jailed for up to five years, fined, caned, or any combination of the three. For sexually exploiting a child, he could have been jailed for up to five years, fined up to S$10,000, or both.
