A foreign national working in Singapore as a senior executive is on trial after being accused of sexually assaulting his son’s then 9-year-old classmate who was staying over at his house following a Halloween party.
The 47-year-old who is married and has three sons pleaded not guilty to one charge of aggravated molest and two counts of sexual assault by penetration of a person below 14 years old, on Tuesday. Neither he nor the victim can be named to protect the victim’s identity.
The court heard that the alleged incident occurred on 31 October 2015 when the victim slept over at the accused’s home at the invitation of the accused and his wife, after attending a Halloween party.
Soon after the victim and the accused’s son returned home after the Halloween festivities, they went to bed at the man’s son’s bedroom which had a bunk bed. The accused’s son occupied the bottom bunk, leaving the victim with the top bunk.
The victim was allegedly awake at 11.15pm when the accused entered the room to check if the boys were asleep. The victim feigned sleep when he saw his friend’s father approach.
The man stepped on the lower bunk to check whether the boys are sleeping, before allegedly pulling the victim’s left kneecap towards him. He then allegedly molested the victim from outside his shorts, before pulling down the boy’s short to touch him.
He then left the room before allegedly returning to perform oral sex on the victim.
The accused again left the room before allegedly returning to abuse the boy once again. He pulled up the shorts of the victim before leaving the room once and for all after this, the prosecution said.
This was when the boy decided to leave the house. Packing all his things, the victim approached the accused and told him that he wanted to leave as he felt unwell. The accused’s wife contacted the boy’s father who fetched him from his friend’s home.
It was only after he stepped into the car that the boy – who “did not look normal” according to his father when he picked him up – told his father what had happened, after extracting a promise from him not to tell anyone.
The victim’s father then alighted the car to confront the accused, while the boy crouched on the car’s floorboard throughout the ensuing argument in which the accused denied the boy’s allegations, claiming he was using his computer in his room the whole time.
The victim’s father lodged a police report two days later, on 2 Nov, after notifying his wife – who was in New York at the time – and the boy’s school counsellor. He also made the mistake of washing the clothes the boy wore on the night of the alleged assault, because of which the boy’s clothes cannot be submitted for DNA testing.
Despite this, the prosecution plans to call 10 witnesses to the stand, including the victim and his parents. It also plans to submit forensic evidence during the closed-door hearing showing that the lower bunk of the bunk bed was able to withstand the man’s weight and that the man’s height would have made it possible to reach the boy.
The accused may face a jail term of 8-20 years for sexual assault by penetration and a minimum of 12 strokes of the cane on each charge. He could be also face a five year jail term, caned, fined or sentenced to a combination of these punishments for aggravated molestation.