Singapore—A man who was convicted of molesting the mother of his partner while the mother lay sleeping has been given a sentence of nine months in jail and one stroke of the cane.
The 25-year-old man was sentenced last Thursday (Jan 21).
He pleaded guilty to one count of molestation for using criminal force with intent to outrage the victim’s modesty.
The identity of both the man and his victim, who is in her late 30s, have remained undisclosed for her protection, CNA reports.
The woman suffers from depression as a result of the molestation and has been attending counseling sessions at the Institute of Mental Health.
She has also been under medication since the incident, which occurred on the morning of March 9, 2020, at the victim’s home.
On that day, the man was with his girlfriend and their baby at the woman’s home.
The girlfriend and her mother were both asleep in separate rooms.
Before noon, the man went into the mother’s room to get a pillow, and saw the woman asleep with her breast exposed.
According to Ms Tin Shu Min, the Deputy Public Prosecutor on the case, the man squeezed the woman’s breast several times, as well as touched her mouth.
mothership.sg reports that while he was molesting her, he was calling her, “Mother.”
The woman woke up, and saw her daughter’s boyfriend with his pants down and his private parts in the open, in a squatting position beside her.
He told her then, “Let’s have sex.”
The mother said no, and asked where her daughter and the baby were.
The man explained that they were both asleep.
Then, the mother pretended to go back to sleep, and the man left the room.
Because she did not want to make the man suspicious, she did not file a complaint with the police immediately, even though she was shocked at his behavior.
But she called the police to report the incident at 12:35 that afternoon, while the man was attending to the baby.
The police arrested the man shortly afterward.
The court heard that while the medications and sessions have been of help to the woman, she still suffers from trauma when she remembers the molestation.
The man had previously been given probation for a sex-related crime over seven years ago.
He was given the full sentence that the prosecution had asked for, as he had a previous offence and due to the lingering negative effects on his girlfriend’s mother.
The man could have been jailed for as long as two years, been made to pay a fine, or received a caning for the offence of using criminal force to outrage the victim’s modesty.
/TISG
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