SINGAPORE: A 26-year-old Mathematics teacher asked his 14-year-old foreign student to be his girlfriend and began a sexual relationship with her, committing multiple sex offences in the process.
He told her it was a “natural thing” for couples to have sex and told her not to tell anyone about it as it would harm her reputation and be “terrible” for her if her parents found out.
The crimes came to light when the girl went back to her home country for her 15th birthday and told her mother what happened.
The offender, now 29, was sentenced on Monday (Sep 5) to five years’ jail. He pleaded guilty to three charges of sexual penetration of a minor, with another two charges taken into consideration.
The names of the victim, the offender and the school in question cannot be published due to gag orders protecting the victim’s identity.
The court heard that the offender, a Singapore Permanent Resident, was a teacher with an unidentified school between January 2019 and June 2019.
The 14-year-old victim arrived in Singapore in February 2019 and began studying at the school a month later.
The offender taught the victim’s class Mathematics and subsequently exchanged WeChat contact details with her. They began communicating and the victim confided in her teacher about the issues she had as a newly arrived foreign student.
TEACHER INVITES VICTIM TO HIS HOME
Sometime in early April 2019, the teacher invited the victim and her friend, a 20-year-old male student, to his place.
Before the male student arrived, the teacher hugged the victim and kissed her face in his living room. When the male student arrived, the trio had lunch and watched a movie, with the teacher putting his arm around the victim’s shoulder.
The trio later moved to the teacher’s bedroom where they continued watching the movie on his bed.
The male student left for home before the victim. While the victim was alone with the teacher, the teacher asked her to be his girlfriend.
He did this even though he knew it was not appropriate for a teacher to have a relationship with a student, court documents said. The victim thought about it and agreed, thinking it would be good to have a teacher care for her.
She told the offender that he was her first boyfriend, and she did not know what to expect from her new relationship, as she had no prior dating experience.
Following this, the teacher would kiss the victim in school when no one else was around. He knew she was 14, and told her not to tell anyone about their relationship as it would “harm her reputation”, court documents said.
He was also concerned about losing his job, and the victim did not disclose her relationship to anyone as she trusted him.
They met multiple times at the teacher’s home for sexual activities, with the teacher telling the victim that it was natural for couples to engage in sex.
On one occasion in April 2019, the pair had sex in the teacher’s room while watching a movie. The victim was “nervous” and “taken aback”, and felt pain during the encounter.
TEACHER GOT VICTIM TO TAKE CONTRACEPTIVE PILLS
After she left the teacher’s house, he texted her to express his fear of her possibly having an unwanted pregnancy. He asked her if they should “do a little other precaution” as he was “panicking a lot”.
He later bought contraceptive pills and the girl ate them according to his instructions.
Around May 2019, the victim told the teacher she planned to transfer to a different school, and he wanted a break-up as they would not be able to meet up regularly thereafter.
They had a mutual break-up on Jun 14, 2019, as it was both the end of the school term and the teacher’s last day of employment with the school.
That same day, the victim confided in the 20-year-old male student who had gone with her to the teacher’s house.
She said she had just broken up with someone, and revealed to him upon some probing that it was the Mathematics teacher. She further told him that they had engaged in sexual activities.
Furious that the teacher had taken advantage of the victim, the male student took the victim to the school to confront the accused.
The accused persuaded the victim not to report the matter to the police as it would “harm her reputation”, and reminded her that her father would be furious. She eventually decided not to report the matter to the police.
In early July 2019, the victim went home to spend her 15th birthday with her family. She confided in her mother that she had engaged in sexual activities with her teacher.
Her mother was furious and contacted the victim’s guardian in Singapore to tell him what had happened. When the victim returned to Singapore later that month, she told her guardian that she wanted to lodge a police report, and he filed a report against the teacher.
At the time of the report, the accused had returned to his home country. He was arrested by the police at Changi Airport when he arrived in Singapore in September 2019.
A November 2019 report from the Child Guidance Clinic of the Institute of Mental Health stated that the victim felt “sad, angry and fearful” since she started having sexual activities with the teacher.
She is also “fearful of males and has difficulty trusting others”, which could lead to difficulties with her social interaction later in life, the prosecutor said.
TO BE A TEACHER IS TO ANSWER A NOBLE CALL
Deputy Public Prosecutor Colin Ng asked for at least five to six years’ jail to be imposed on the teacher. He said that any consent “ostensibly given by the 14-year-old victim in this case cannot be endorsed as positive consent because the victim lacked the requisite maturity”.
“To be a teacher is to answer a noble call,” he said. “Society entrusts teachers with the responsibility to mould our young minds and the power to shape their character and convictions.”
He added that children look to their teachers not merely as educators but mentors and role models, and the accused abused the trust accorded to him “instead of fulfilling this high calling”.
District Judge Paul Chan said the defence took pains to underscore that the victim was a “willing participant” in the relationship and all sexual encounters.
“This is correct. However, that there was no coercion does not mean that the victim was not vulnerable,” said Judge Chan.
He added that the accused was entrusted “with a solemn responsibility to educate the victim and be an example for the victim” as a teacher.
“At the very least, society expects teachers not to take advantage of the youthfulness, immaturity and relative lack of life experience of those placed in their care”, said Judge Chan.