Advertisement

Man jailed and caned for uploading nude photos of 2 ex-girlfriends, sex with underage girl

Unrecognisable person working on laptop in the dark.
(PHOTO:Getty Images)

SINGAPORE — A 23-year-old man who preyed on a 12-year-old girl he met on social media and circulated compromising photos of two ex-girlfriends was jailed for 10 years, 10 weeks and sentenced to six strokes of the cane on Tuesday (11 August).

In the case of one victim, the man circulated her photos in an act of revenge porn after she refused to divorce her husband.

The man, now 26, pleaded guilty in the High Court to one count of statutory rape in 2017, and two counts of transmission of an obscene object. One count each of sexual exploitation of a child and statutory rape were taken into consideration for sentencing.

Sexually groomed 12-year-old victim

The man and the girl first met through a social media platform known as “BeeTalk” on 13 September 2017.

When they began texting on WhatsApp, the man immediately made sexual advances on her. He asked the victim if she ‘played games’, which the victim took to be mobile games at first.

When the victim asked the man what games he referred to, the man replied, “Touch d**k haha”, and asked her to try it out.

That same night, he asked the victim if he could kiss her on the lips, and perform sexual acts on her, telling her she would “love it” and that “(she) will moan”. He suggested having a video-call with the victim where he would expose himself and beseeched her to show her breasts in return.

He later asked to meet the girl in her school uniform in person. The girl was reluctant but agreed to meet him.

They met on 14 September 2017 while the girl’s parents were still at work. After the two met at an MRT station, the man led the girl to a community club which he knew had little human traffic. They went to a stairwell where the man began molesting the girl over her clothing.

The victim felt shocked but could not stop the man. He then sexually assaulted the girl and had sex with her. The girl agreed to the sex act as she thought the man was a nice person who had listened to her troubles, according to the prosecution.

The duo had unprotected sex and separated at about 1.04pm.

Even then, the man continued pestering the girl for nude photos, and the girl sent one days later. She demurred when the man asked for a nude photo to be sent every day.

The man asked for sex again at the girl’s house on 18 September 2017 and the girl skipped school that morning.

Later that night, the victim’s mother confiscated her handphone and discovered sexually explicit messages from the man, asking the victim to remove her bra and panties and send naked photographs of herself to him.

The next day, the victim’s mother and aunt brought her to school and spoke to the principal and vice-principal about the incident. They lodged a police report that morning.

The man admitted during investigations that he was aware that having sexual intercourse with a person under 14 was a statutory rape offence. He admitted that he was curious to feel what it would be like to have sexual intercourse with an underaged girl.

Ex who refused to divorce husband

The man also uploaded compromising photos of a 23-year-old woman he dated for a short while in 2010. His offence was revealed when his handphone was examined while he was under investigation for statutory rape.

The woman later married another man. She contacted the accused person in 2015 when she was in the midst of separating from her husband. The two met and had sex. It is unclear if the woman eventually divorced her husband after separation.

The accused later asked the woman to video call him while showering and the woman agreed. She also gave in to his requests for nude photos.

During their exchange, the man repeatedly asked the woman to divorce her husband to be with him, but she refused and subsequently stopped contacting him.

That year, the woman found that her naked photograph had been posted on website Tumblr. She suspected that the man was behind the post, as it featured her in the shower. However, she did not lodge a police report then as she did not have any proof.

The photograph was later discovered in the man’s handphone and he admitted to uploading the photo to humiliate the woman. Although he deleted the two photographs from his Tumblr account, they were still circulated.

Betrayed ex’s trust

The man also uploaded revealing photographs of a 25-year-old woman whom he dated after meeting through BeeTalk in 2015.

During their relationship, the woman sent the man some 15 nude photographs of herself at his request. When they broke up in August 2017, she told him to delete all the photos but the man kept them for his viewing pleasure.

On 29 October 2017, the victim’s ex-colleague alerted her to a Tumblr post containing nine explicit photographs of her. The woman confronted the man as she recognised the account but the man denied posting the photographs.

It emerged that the man had uploaded eight photos of the woman between February and March 2017 while he was still dating her. He deleted the photos the next day, however they were still circulated on Tumblr.

In sentencing the man, Justice Kannan Ramesh noted that the man had uploaded the photos of one of the women in a case of “revenge pornography”. He had also betrayed the trust of the other woman, who had sent him the photos while they were still together.

“The photographs with regard to both victims continue to remain on the internet despite the accused deleting them,” he said.

Stay in the know on-the-go: Join Yahoo Singapore's Telegram channel at http://t.me/YahooSingapore

Other Singapore stories

Man who claimed trial to murdering father, 75, was likely of unsound mind during act

COVID-19: MOH reports 188 new cases including 2 Singaporeans

NDP2020: PM Lee Hsien Loong calls NS Square new downtown’s central focus, unveils its design

PM Lee Hsien Loong: Holding NDP2020 symbolises Singapore's unity amid COVID-19