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Jail for man who sexually touched boy in 2005; victim reported him to police almost 20 years later
https://www.straitstimes.com/singap...im-reports-it-to-police-almost-20-years-later
SINGAPORE – In 2005, when he was nine, a boy was often touched inappropriately by a neighbour who enticed him with an electronic game console.
The man even took a naked picture of the boy on a Polaroid camera.
Despite having nightmares about the man touching his private parts, the boy did not report the incidents to anyone as he was ashamed and felt no one would believe him.
The victim also knew that his father had borrowed money from the offender and did not want to make things awkward between them.
Eventually, the boy moved away, and he lost contact with the neighbour, who had committed the acts at the vegetable stall he operated.
Almost 20 years later in 2024, the victim saw his former neighbour and decided to make a police report about the inappropriate acts committed against him.
On Sept 2, 2025, the offender, now 72, was sentenced to two years’ jail after pleading guilty to committing indecent acts on the boy.
To protect the victim’s identity, there is a gag order on the names of the offender and the victim, where the offender lived at the time of the incidents, and where the offender’s stall is still located.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Jonathan Tan said the victim would hang around the market where the offender ran a vegetable stall with his wife.
The victim would call the offender “uncle” and play with the offender’s son, who was around his age.
DPP Tan said the victim’s father and grandmother also knew the offender, who was around 51 at the time.
The offender owned several Nintendo Game Boy consoles and offered these devices to young boys in the neighbourhood for them to play games on.
In 2005, the offender told the victim he would let the boy use the console if the boy stayed at the vegetable stall. The boy agreed as his family could not afford a game console.
When the victim went to the vegetable stall at least once a week to play on the console, the offender would touch the boy on his thigh.
DPP Tan said the boy felt this was weird and uncomfortable but did not tell anyone.
The boy was also afraid that he would no longer be able to use the device if he reacted in a way the man did not like.
There were times when the victim rejected the offender’s advances, and the man gave him the cold shoulder.
The boy would then have to plead with the offender to be allowed to use the console again.
As a result, the boy felt indebted to the offender and allowed the inappropriate acts, which progressed from touching over the boy’s clothes to direct contact under his pants. DPP Tan said the offender lost count of the number of times he had touched the victim because these incidents happened so long ago.
On one occasion, the boy went with the offender to the man’s home, where the offender asked him to pose naked on the bed so he could take a Polaroid photo of the boy.
The victim did as he was told but later asked the offender to tear up the photo.
DPP Tan said that in 2008, the boy started realising that what had been done to him was wrong but did not report the incidents.
“Despite being asked directly by his father, the victim lied and said that the accused did not touch him,” said the prosecutor, without elaborating on how his father came to suspect the indecent acts.
Instead, after the victim moved to another area, he resolved to forget what had happened.
But he would have flashbacks of the incidents around once a month.
“These tend to be triggered by news reports about sexual assault involving children, which would cause him to feel depressed. He also experienced nightmares of the accused and the sexual assaults on a monthly basis which left him feeling angry and upset,” said the prosecutor.
In 2024, almost 20 years later, the victim happened to see the offender after not meeting him for years. It was not stated in court where he saw the man.
Seeing the man brought back painful memories, and the victim decided to file a police report to make sure that no other young boys would be targeted in the same way, said DPP Tan.
Urging the court to impose a sentence of between 24 and 26 months’ jail, DPP Tan said the abuse of trust in this case was manifold.
According to charge sheets, the offender had in 2005 similarly sexually touched another boy, who was around seven years old at the time.
In mitigation, the offender, who was unrepresented, pleaded for a light sentence.
He said through a translator: “My wife is old, and when I am serving my sentence, there will be no one to help her out at our stall. She is hard of hearing and has other ailments as well.”
In sentencing, Deputy Principal District Judge Kessler Soh told the offender: “You have committed a number of serious offences. This happened in the past, but it is right of you to plead guilty and admit to these offences so you can serve the punishment that is deserved.”
Those who commit an obscene or indecent act with a child can be jailed for up to two years, fined up to $5,000, or both.
