Rope-skipping coach jailed 25 years for raping 13-year-old

SINGAPORE — The High Court sentenced a sports coach to 25 years in jail for raping and sexually abusing a girl when she was 13.

Roger Yue Jr, now 59, used to teach rope-skipping in the victim’s primary school. He claimed trial to contest the allegations, but was found guilty on two counts of statutory rape and five counts of sexual penetration of a minor.

No caning was imposed as part of the sentence because he is above 50 years old. The victim, now 22, cannot be named to protect her identity.

Although Yue faced 48 charges of various sexual offences committed between 2008 and 2010, the prosecution proceeded with the seven charges during the seven-day trial which started in November last year. The remaining 41 charges were stood down.

The court heard that Yue and the teenager became acquainted in 2005, after he was appointed to coach her school’s rope-skipping team.

Yue later invited the girl to join his team for competitive rope-skipping, and enlisted her help to teach other rope-skipping teams from several schools. Over a span of two years, he assaulted her sexually at multiple locations, including his Tampines home, his now-defunct studio and at a secondary school.

The assaults stopped after the victim distanced herself from Yue. She later lodged a police report on April 28 in 2014 — almost five years later — after she confided in her polytechnic lecturer and counsellor.

In convicting Yue on Feb 20, Justice Aedit Abdullah had addressed the teen’s late disclosure of the offences, saying he accepted that victims of sexual assault or abuse “may not behave in a stereotypical way”.

He added that a victim who reports the incidents a long time after they have happened “does not necessarily suffer from reduced credibility, though such an omission robs the victim of the strength of support that is to be obtained from early reporting”.

While it might also appear “odd” that the teen continued the training sessions with Yue despite the assaults, Justice Aedit noted that a juvenile could not be expected to always react in a manner similar to an adult, who would report the assault as soon as possible.