James Koh Liang Chek was sentenced to 15 months’ jail on May 29, 2025. - Photo: ST
SINGAPORE: A man was sentenced to 15 months’ jail on Thursday (May 29) after he was caught with child abuse material comprising videos and pictures of young girls in the nude.
James Koh Liang Chek, 33, pleaded guilty to one count of being in possession of the eight videos and 467 photographs that showed at least 12 different children.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Chan Yi Cheng said that about five to six years ago, Koh went on an online forum and found out about a cloud storage service that allowed users to share folders and generate links.
He had frequently logged onto the forum to search for pornographic material and learnt that he could gain access to more of such content through the storage service.
He created an account on the storage service using his e-mail address before downloading pornography.
The DPP said: “He would obtain the links from (the) forum and thereafter use his (storage service) account to access them. The accused only used his... account to access pornographic materials.”
Without revealing details, the DPP said that the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Singapore Police Force later received some information from Interpol on crimes against children. Details about the information were not disclosed in court documents.
On Oct 4, 2021, CID officers started an operation to arrest those suspected of having dealt with child exploitation material from the links found on the cloud storage service provider.
They screened a certain flagged e-mail address and found that it belonged to Koh.
Officers arrested him the next day and seized his mobile phone, which was later found to contain the eight videos and 467 photographs of child abuse material.
On May 29, defence lawyer Danny Nah told the court that his client has realised the error of his ways and has undergone counselling.
Nah added that Koh also wants to “move on from this episode”.
The offender’s bail has been set at $10,000, and he is expected to begin serving his sentence on June 12. - The Straits Times/ANN
