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Man pleads guilty to sexually assaulting and molesting grandson

Getty Images photo
Getty Images photo

A 63-year old man pleaded guilty in the High Court on Thursday (22 February) to molesting and sexually assaulting his then seven-year-old grandson.

The man pleaded guilty to one charge of using criminal force to outrage the modesty of a person under the age of 14, and one charge of sexual assault by penetration. Two charges of showing obscene videos to the boy and one additional charge of outrage of modesty will be taken into consideration for sentencing.

Both parties cannot be named due to a court-imposed gag order to protect the identity of the boy, now aged 10.

The court heard that sometime in February or March 2015, the boy was watching television with his grandfather in their flat in the west of Singapore.

The man asked the boy to follow him into his bedroom. When they were in the room, they lay on the bed together. The man then pulled the boy towards him and the kissed boy’s face and neck, then fondled him.

He then undressed the boy and himself and continued touching the boy’s private parts and buttocks. The man panicked when he heard the family’s domestic helper calling for the boy outside the room. He hurriedly told the boy to get dressed and told him not to tell anyone about what happened as it would cause problems for his parents.

In a separate incident on 28 September 2016, the man asked the boy to follow him into his room where he undressed the boy and himself and sexually assaulted the boy using his finger. He only stopped after the boy told the man he was in pain. He then hugged the boy and told him not to tell anyone about the assault.

How the offences came to light

On 22 October 2016, the boy’s mother saw him awake and playing with his phone at 9pm even though she had told him to rest early because they were planning to visit a temple early the next day. She warned him that he would be left at home alone with his grandfather if he was too tired to wake up.

The boy then confided in his mother that he did not want to stay at home with his grandfather as the man had molested him. Shocked, he boy’s mother confronted the man, who admitted to what he had done. The boy’s parents lodged a police report the next day.

The man will be sentenced on 4 April. He has been in remand since 1 June 2017.

The maximum punishment for using criminal force to outrage the modesty of a person under the age of 14 is a jail term of five years, with fine or with caning, or any combination of such punishments.

The maximum punishment for sexual assault by penetration is a jail term of 20 years, with fine or caning. The man cannot be caned as he is over 50.

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