Skip to main content

Advertisement

Advertisement

MMA coach jailed for sex with minors and stashing child porn

SINGAPORE — Harbouring a fetish for young girls, a 39-year-old man used social networking platforms to lure victims, then secretly filmed them engaging in sexual acts with him to add to his stash of child pornography videos.

Joshua Robinson was sentenced to four years' jail for preying on young girls.

Joshua Robinson was sentenced to four years' jail for preying on young girls.

Follow TODAY on WhatsApp

SINGAPORE — Harbouring a fetish for young girls, a 39-year-old man used social networking platforms to lure victims, then secretly filmed them engaging in sexual acts with him to add to his stash of child pornography videos.

Joshua Robinson, who preyed on two 15-year-olds between September 2013 and June 2015, was on Thursday (March 2) sentenced to four years’ jail, with District Judge Crystal Ong describing him as a sexual predator. 

When the law caught up with Robinson, officers who raided his apartment found 5,902 obscene films, of which 321 videos featured children between the ages of two and 16. This is believed to be the largest child pornography video collection seized from one person in Singapore.

Robinson, an American and a mixed martial arts (MMA) instructor, faced 29 charges in total, ranging from sexual penetration of a minor to making an obscene film. The prosecution proceeded with nine of these charges, with the rest taken into consideration during sentencing.

In March 2015, using the fake name “Tristen”, Robinson contacted a 15-year-old girl through social media. He asked for more of her photographs, but she rejected his request. Months later, he contacted her again to praise an artwork that she posted online and they exchanged contact numbers. 

He claimed that he was 27, and told the girl that he had a fetish for young girls in uniform. When she said that she was insecure about her weight, he told her that he was fine with it. 

Deputy Public Prosecutor Nicholas Lai said: “He took full advantage of her own insecurity about her body image … so that he would get emotionally closer to the victim.” 

In June 2015, Robinson told her he wanted to meet at Clarke Quay MRT Station and instructed her to wear her school uniform. They went to his apartment along Upper Circular Road, where he filmed them engaging in sexual acts. DPP Lai said: “She was unaware of what he was doing at first and assumed he was just ‘multi-tasking’ on his handphone.” After the encounter, she had a mental breakdown and filed a police report. 

During investigations, the police found 12 obscene videos of Robinson with another 15-year-old girl in a folder labelled “Fifteen” on his computer. It turned out that he got to know the girl from a dating website in 2013 and they had at least three sexual encounters between September 2013 and September 2014.

DPP Lai pointed out that he displayed sexually predatorial behaviour by proceeding to have intercourse with both his young victims on their very first meeting. “It was never the case that the accused had intended to enter into a romantic relationship with either of them,” he said. 

Defence lawyer Mervyn Tan said that the films in Robinson’s possession were for private consumption and not meant for circulation. A psychiatrist had ruled out that Robinson had any mental illness such as paedophilia. 

In July 2015, while he was on police bail, Robinson approached an even younger girl: A six-year-old who had accompanied her father to a gym at Peace Centre. He showed her an obscene video that he filmed and asked if she liked the video. He also told her not to tell anyone about it by putting his finger to his lips and saying “Shhhh”.  

DPP Lai described Robinson as a prowler on the Internet who sexually groomed and morally corrupted his young victims: “From the get-go, the accused had preyed on the victims’ youth, naivety and vulnerability to satiate his sexual lust.”

Read more of the latest in

Advertisement

Advertisement

Stay in the know. Anytime. Anywhere.

Subscribe to get daily news updates, insights and must reads delivered straight to your inbox.

By clicking subscribe, I agree for my personal data to be used to send me TODAY newsletters, promotional offers and for research and analysis.