5.5 years’ jail for man who fled S’pore after sexually violating teen boy he met online in 2005

SINGAPORE — After blackmailing a 14-year-old boy with an obscene video and sexually abusing him, Lim Leong Sze fled the country and remained overseas for a decade.

He was finally nabbed by Malaysian authorities early last year and repatriated to Singapore.

On Monday (July 12), the 57-year-old Singaporean was jailed for five-and-a-half years. This was backdated to Feb 14 last year when he was first held in remand.

The victim, now aged 30, cannot be named due to a court order to protect his identity. He was a Secondary 2 student at the time he met Lim in September 2005.

Lim pleaded guilty last month to one charge of carnal intercourse against the order of nature. The offence falls under Section 377 of the 1985 revised edition of the Penal Code that was repealed in 2007.

For sentencing, District Judge Ronald Gwee also took into consideration six other charges, including molestation and criminal intimation by anonymous communication.

WHAT HAPPENED

The court heard that Lim, who worked as a debt collector, had initiated a conversation with the victim on online chat platform MIRC.

He told the boy that he was a Chinese woman in her 20s and the boy replied that he was 14 years old.

They soon moved to chatting on MSN messaging platform, where Lim asked the boy to show his face through a webcam.

The boy did so and Lim asked him to strip naked. He refused, saying his father was home and that he would do it later.

When the boy’s father left the house, he went back to chatting with Lim, who again asked to see his nude body and asked him to masturbate.

Thinking that Lim was a woman, the boy complied. Lim then secretly filmed him.

Afterwards, Lim told the boy that he had filmed him and that he would send the video to him as proof.

Lim also threatened to post the video online or tell the boy’s father unless he did it again.

After the boy gave in to Lim’s demands, Lim asked the boy to be his “brother” and go out with him. The boy agreed out of fear of Lim posting the video.

Later that day, they went to the Geylang area where Lim showed the victim the video clip and another obscene video, which he had saved in his mobile phone.

He then took the victim to his office along Guillemard Road near Geylang.

Lim soon got the boy to massage his back before sexually violating him.

When the boy told him that he was uncomfortable, they got dressed. Lim took him to a pub before sending him home, while also offering him a mobile phone and money.

The next day, the pair met online once more. Lim asked the boy to masturbate in front of the webcam again but he refused.

The boy reported the matter to the police two days later. Lim was arrested soon after, but fled Singapore in 2010 just before he was to be charged.

Those convicted of committing carnal intercourse against the order of nature can be jailed for life or jailed for up to 10 years and fined.