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Youth sought sexual acts with girl, 15, by offering admin job

Justice Scales and books and wooden gavel
Photo from Getty Images

SINGAPORE — He offered an “administrative job” to a 15-year-old girl, with the intention of paying her for sexual acts.

After the first sexual encounter, Iqmal Haziq Othman, 20, tried to meet the girl a second time by telling the girl that a sexual video of her had been found online.

The girl instead lodged a police report.

On Tuesday (19 November), Iqmal pleaded guilty to two counts of committing an indecent act with a young person and one count of attempting to do so. Another two counts of a similar nature were taken into consideration for sentencing.

The court has called for reports to assess Iqmal’s suitability for probation and reformative training. These are two rehabilitative sentencing options that are usually extended to offenders below the age of 21. Iqmal turns 21 on Wednesday.

Responded to post seeking part-time work

In November last year, the girl, who cannot be named to protect her identity, made a post on online marketplace platform Carousell to look for a part-time job.

Seeing the girl’s post, Iqmal offered her an administrative job while intending to engage in sexual acts with her. He was aware that she was only 15 years old.

He later told the girl that he would pay $100 for her to show her naked body to him and $800 to have sex with him.

While the girl did not agree to sex, she agreed to reveal her nude body.

On 16 November last year, the girl visited Iqmal’s house. At his bedroom, he instructed her to undress herself and she complied. After undressing himself, Iqmal touched the girl’s body and told the girl to perform a sexual act on him for extra $100. As the girl had no idea how to do so, he guided her.

Iqmal then offered to pay the girl another extra $50 to touch her genitals. The victim agreed to the arrangement.

Unbeknownst to the girl, Iqmal recorded the acts with his mobile phone. He then paid the girl.

Pretended to help victim with deleting sexual video

On 12 December, he contacted the girl through social media platform Instagram, intending to engage in sexual acts with her again.

Pretending to be a helpful third party, he told the girl that he had seen a sexual video of her online. The girl sought help from Iqmal, not knowing that it was him.

Iqmal then claimed that he had spent $100 to buy the video from the person who possessed it. He claimed that the person wanted to have sex with the girl before agreeing to delete the video.

When the victim refused to have sex, Iqmal asked for oral sex and for the girl to strip for him over a live video chat.

The girl refused and eventually lodged a police report at the advice of her family members.

Calling for a reformative training suitability report for Iqmal, Deputy Public Prosecutor James Chew said that the youthful offender’s crimes were exploitative in nature.

Iqmal’s lawyer, John Koh, sought a probation report instead, stating that his client was remorseful and urged the court to “give him a chance to rehabilitate himself”.

Iqmal will return to court on 26 November.

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