Man jailed 1 year for sex acts with 15-year-old boy whom he met on dating app

SINGAPORE — In exchange for buying a prepaid mobile phone card for a boy, a man engaged in sexual acts with the 15-year-old whom he had befriended on a gay dating application.

Htut Phyo Wai, a 26-year-old Singaporean, was on Friday (Sept 17) jailed 12 months for having underage sex with the male teenager in 2019.

Htut pleaded guilty to one charge of sexual penetration of a minor under 16. Three other charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.

His Singaporean victim, now 17, cannot be named because of a court order to protect his identity.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Emily Koh told the court that the victim had downloaded Grindr, a mobile app popular with gay men, in 2018 and began communicating with strangers.

The boy learnt from these conversations that he could earn money by providing sexual services.

Htut also began using Grindr in 2018.

In April 2019, the victim posted on Grindr that he needed a prepaid mobile Sim (subscriber identity module) card.

Htut then asked the boy what he could get in return for giving him one.

To that, the boy replied to say that Htut would get “whatever he wanted”, the court heard.

They arranged to meet on April 12, 2019, with the boy sending Htut his address in a text message.

That day, Htut bought a Sim card from a convenience store at Changi Airport and headed to the boy’s home.

There, he asked the boy for his age. The boy said that he was 15 before they performed various sexual acts on each other in the boy’s bedroom.

Afterwards, Htut gave him the Sim card and left.

Court documents did not state how his crimes came to light.

DPP Koh had sought 12 months’ jail, saying that the law made it plain that sexual penetration of a minor is a crime, regardless of the victim’s consent.

She added: “Any consent ostensibly given by the victim cannot be endorsed as positive consent, because the victim lacked the requisite maturity.”

Htut could have been jailed for up to 10 years or fined, or punished with both.