Wooden gavel on the table
SINGAPORE (The Straits Times/Asia News Network): A man who engaged a sex worker ended up stealing her mobile phone as he was not satisfied with her services.
Yap Kian Heng assaulted a second sex worker on another occasion after he insisted on paying her a rate that was lower than what she had asked for.
Separately, he also assaulted a masseuse and stole from her following a dispute over the scope of sexual services she would offer him at the time.
Yap, 40, was sentenced to 15 weeks’ jail on Friday (Dec 30) after he pleaded guilty to offences that include two counts each of theft and assault.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Wu Yu Jie said that Yap met the first sex worker on Aug 4, 2020, and had sex with her in a Woodlands unit.
He was later unsatisfied with her services and left after he stole one of her two mobile phones.
On the way home, he tried but failed to unlock the device. Yap then threw it away.
The DPP said: “When the accused reached home, he received a message from (the sex worker) asking if he had taken her phone. The accused denied the accusation.
“A few days later, (she) messaged the accused again. This time, the accused said that if she wanted her phone back, she would have to pay (him) S$500. The accused did not tell her that he had already thrown the phone away.”
At the woman’s request, he returned to the Woodlands unit a few days later, and she asked him to return her SIM card.
Yap finally admitted that he had thrown away the phone, and she filed a police report on Aug 19, 2020.
He contacted a second sex worker on April 9, 2021, but before they engaged in sexual activities, the pair got into a dispute over the woman’s charges.
She had told Yap that she charged $140 for her services, but he insisted on paying her $100.
During the argument, he touched her private parts and she slapped him.
Yap flew into a rage and repeatedly punched the woman, raining blows on her head and left forearm.
The second sex worker alerted the police, and Yap was arrested on April 15, 2021, before he was charged in court four months later.
Yap was out on bail at around 12.40am on May 15, 2022, when he claimed to have heard a noise coming from a Marsiling flat as he was walking along an adjacent corridor.
He then pointed his mobile phone through a window of the unit and snapped two pictures of a couple - a man and a woman - in their bedroom.
At the time of the incident, the male victim was in the nude, while his companion was dressed in a singlet and a pair of shorts. They were not having sex, said the DPP.
Yap returned to the corridor about an hour later and was using his phone to look into the couple’s room when the man grabbed the device.
The police were alerted soon after, and officers arrested Yap before he was released on bail again.
On Sept 15, 2022, he arranged to meet a masseuse in a hotel room, but later got into a dispute with her over the scope of sexual services she would offer.
Yap then took the woman’s purse containing around $170 and walked towards the room door.
The DPP said: “(The masseuse) tried to snatch the items back from the accused but did not manage to do so. She ran to the... door to block (him and) began shouting for the hotel service crew to call the police.
“At this point, the accused threw the items onto the floor, intending to distract (the woman) so that she would (move away from)... the hotel room door, and give him a chance to run away.”
When the masseuse did not do so, Yap pushed her to the floor and choked her.
He fled after that and was arrested later that day.
