SINGAPORE — An unemployed man who posed as a police officer, then molested and stole S$50 from an intellectually disabled woman, was on Tuesday (Dec 13) sentenced to 23 months’ jail and six strokes of the cane.

Samad Saptu, 47, who is married and has three children, was convicted of one charge each of outrage of modesty, theft, impersonating a police officer, and possessing 25 video files containing obscene films.

Prosecutors described this as “one of the worst cases” of outrage of modesty, because the man had preyed on a vulnerable victim “incapable of seeing through his dastardly ploy”. The victim, in her 30s, has mild intellectual disability and cannot be named to protect her identity.

The court heard that in the early morning of Aug 1, 2014, Samad was driving a car and approached the victim, who was on her way to a centre where she learnt basic life skills.

Identifying himself as an officer from the Criminal Investigation Department, Samad instructed her to get into the car and then drove to a deserted multi-storey carpark. There, he showed her pornographic videos on his mobile phone.

After covering the windows of his car with towels and garments, Samad got into the backseat with his victim, undressed her and himself, and molested her.

Samad fell asleep after that and woke up nine hours later. All this while, the victim was held captive in the car and “felt scared and uncomfortable throughout”, the court heard.

Samad then told the victim he needed money for fuel, and took S$50 from her backpack meant for paying her school fees at the centre. At about 3.40pm, he dropped her off near the bus-stop where he had picked her up that morning.

The victim’s mother, who had been looking for her after being told she did not show up at the centre, took her to make a police report after hearing what happened to her.

Pressing for a maximum sentence of 24 months’ jail and six strokes of the cane for the outrage of modesty offence, Deputy Public Prosecutors (DPPs) Kavita Uthrapathy and Amanda Chong stressed that the courts have consistently taken a stern view against an offender who exploits a victim’s low mental capacity in perpetuating crime.

Samad’s act “amounted to the most egregious instance of outrage of modesty”, they charged, noting that his victim’s “guilelessness was evident” in how she could only sit and wait for him to wake up instead of trying to flee the scene.

A maximum sentence should be imposed even though Samad had pleaded guilty and spared his victim the trauma of testifying at a trial, the DPPs said. “He had used the victim wholly for his own sexual and financial gratification. The despicable manner in which the accused committed the outrage of modesty offence must attract the maximum sentence prescribed for the offence,” they said.

Samad could have been jailed up to two years and/or fined for impersonating a public servant; jailed up to three years and/or fined for theft; and jailed six months and/or fined at least S$500 for each film for the offence of possessing obscene films.