3 years' jail for man who got underage girlfriend pregnant twice and evaded the law

SINGAPORE — After a 22-year-man repeatedly had unprotected sex with his underage girlfriend, she had to undergo an abortion at the age of 15.

She got pregnant again, but kept the baby this time and gave the child up for adoption.

On Friday (Aug 30), the Singaporean man, now aged 33, was sentenced to three years’ jail. He pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual penetration of a minor, with another 10 similar charges taken into consideration for sentencing.

Both he and the girl cannot be named due to a court order to protect her identity.

Giving his own mitigation plea, the man asked for leniency, telling District Judge John Ng that he regretted what he did and was “very sorry for everything”.

He added that his family had told him to surrender to the police after being “in pain all these years”.

“My fiancee and I are getting married... We want to start a new life and hope to have closure... My family and fiancee have forgiven me, you see,” he said.

The court heard that the man got to know the girl in 2007, when he was 21. She told him that she was 13 years old and they chatted with each other on the online messaging platform MSN Chat.

They began dating the next year after he asked her to be his girlfriend. They had sex in mid-August 2008 in his flat and continued having unprotected sex at least once a month until February 2009.

At that point, the girl’s mother suspected that she was pregnant and confirmed her suspicions through a home pregnancy kit.

The next month, the girl had an abortion. The man was not told about the pregnancy until later.

Shortly after, she ran away from home and began staying with him until he was arrested in September 2009 by the military police. Court documents did not state why he was arrested and what his charges were.

After his arrest, the girl found out that she was four months’ pregnant after going for a medical check-up. She told him about it in a letter as he was in the military detention barracks.

The girl’s mother later sent her away to a shelter and the couple stopped contacting each other in February 2010.

She gave birth in March 2010.

On Nov 25, 2011, the man was supposed to turn up in court but he chose to abscond. It was not stated where he went.

In April 2017, the courts granted a discharge not amounting to an acquittal for all his charges and cancelled the arrest warrant issued against him.

He surrendered himself on June 24 this year and was immediately arrested.