Jail for 61-year-old repeat offender who told girl to remove pants after saying he wasn’t a ‘dirty old guy’

SINGAPORE — A 61-year-old man entered the home of his 11-year-old neighbour on the pretext of reading her fortune while she was alone at home, telling her that he was not “a dirty old guy”.

He had just been released from jail less than two weeks ago for an earlier conviction of molestation.

Among other things, he asked her to take off her pants but left after the girl refused to let him.

On Friday (Aug 13), he was convicted of one count of attempting to procure the commission of an indecent act by a child. 

He was jailed for 14 months and given an enhanced jail term of another 171 days for reoffending while on a remission order for his earlier conviction.

The man cannot be named due to a court order to protect the identity of the victim.

His offences came to light after the girl’s mother made a police report. 

Investigations later revealed that the man had drunk three bottles of beer before the incident.

When he looked at the girl’s palms at her home, he told her that her future was bright, then asked if her tummy hurt.

The girl said no. He then asked her to remove her pants, claiming he needed to blow her “below part” five times to relieve her pain.

PAST SEXUAL OFFENCES

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Hidayat Amir told the court on Friday that the man had been convicted for nine cases related to sexual offences in the past.

Between 1985 and 2019, he was charged with 11 counts of outrage of modesty and another two of insulting a woman’s modesty. He was punished variously with caning, fine and jail. 

After a conviction in 2003, he was sentenced to 14 years’ preventive detention and nine strokes of the cane.

Preventive detention is a severe punishment imposed on recalcitrant offenders who the court deems should be locked away to protect the public and it does not offer the usual sentence remission for good behaviour. 

DPP Hidayat said that the man had used the same approach as his earlier offences.

For offences where he was convicted in 2018 and 2019, he would offer to read the victims’ fortune and pray together with the victim.

“The (man) also enquired whether the victims felt pain, before using this as a natural progression to commit the respective offences on the pretext of addressing the said pain,” DPP Hidayat said.

He added that this was the third consecutive time the man had reoffended while on a remission order.

The man, who did not have a lawyer, attended the court hearing on Friday via video-link and groaned throughout the session, at one point prompting District Judge Lau Qiuyu to ask him to remain silent and to not disrupt the proceedings.

“I’m very sorry,” he said during mitigation. “I’m clasping my hands together and seeking forgiveness.”

For trying to procure the commission of an indecent act by a child, he could have been fined up to S$10,000 or jailed up to seven years, or both.