SINGAPORE: A man sought out young girls he found attractive on social media and brought them to staircase landings to touch them intimately, despite objections from the girls.
The man had started his offending in 2022 when he was around 19 years old, targeting girls between the ages of 12 and 14.
On Oct 17, he was sentenced to one year and six months’ jail after pleading guilty to two counts of sexual exploitation of a child or young person.
There is a gag order in place to protect the identity of his victims.
The court heard that the man, 22, had messaged his first victim via social media platform TikTok sometime in 2022.
He had introduced himself and said he reached out to the victim as he found her “cute”. She was between 12 and 13 years old at the time.
The pair then started chatting over Instagram and WhatsApp and entered into a relationship shortly after.
The man admitted to engaging in obscene acts with the girl on up to 10 occasions until he stopped communicating with her towards the end of December 2022.
Around two years later in April 2024, the man contacted the girl, now 14, again and suggested meeting up that same month.
When the pair met near her flat, she agreed to rekindle their relationship. While she was sitting on his lap, he started to touch her private parts.
Uncomfortable with his behaviour, she asked him to stop, but he ignored her and continued to touch her inappropriately. Despite her objections, he continued until she eventually gave in as he refused to stop.
This happened again the next day after the man asked to meet again near her flat.
On April 29, 2024, he met her at her secondary school and walked her home. The girl’s sister saw the man as the girl went into her flat to change out of her school uniform.
After changing, the pair went to the staircase landing on the top floor of a nearby block where the man instructed her to sit on his lap. He then touched her private parts again.
He continued to touch her even as she pleaded with him to stop. Eventually, she made up an excuse to go to a nearby fast food restaurant as she knew he would stop touching her there.
Around that time, the girl’s sister told their mother that she saw the girl going out with a male friend who seemed much older than them.
When confronted by her mother, the girl revealed everything that had occurred. The mother then brought her to lodge a police report on May 1, 2024.
The man admitted to deleting his online conversations with the girl a day later on May 2, 2024.
Separately, the man employed the same tactic, using TikTok to reach out to another girl, 14, and started to chat with her on Instagram and WhatsApp sometime in March 2022.
During their conversations, he persistently asked to meet up with her and asked her to send him photographs of her breasts.
After the pair met on May 29, 2022 at a staircase landing of a flat, he instructed her to sit on his lap. After she complied, he got her to remove some of her clothes. He then exposed himself and rubbed himself against her.
He warned her that if she tried to stop him, he would rape her. He asked her if she wanted to have penetrative sex with him several times which she declined.
He went on to say that even if she wanted to leave, it would not be possible since she was physically smaller than him.
When the girl returned home, she told her parents about the incident after they asked about her whereabouts. They brought her to a hospital for a check-up on May 30, 2022, and the hospital lodged a police report thereafter. - The Straits Times/ANN
