A 66-year-old taxi driver has been jailed for two weeks for insulting the modesty of a young woman. He repeatedly told the 19-year old passenger that he wanted to lick her private parts.
The cab driver – Ong Guan Seow – reportedly continued making vulgar comments to the passenger even as he followed her instructions to drive her to a neighbourhood police post, describing explicit sexual acts and claiming that he was just trying to give the teenager some “life experience.” The victim alerted her father and a male friend during the 20-minute taxi ride and was found in tears at the police station when her father arrived.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Daphne Lim argued for a jail term of at least three weeks, highlighting that Ong had abused the trust placed on him as a public transport worker: “The offence had taken place in the confined space of a taxi in the late hours of the night, while the victim was left alone with (Ong), and the victim was placed in a heightened sense of fear as a result of the words uttered by (Ong).
“The fact that she alerted both her friend and her father, and was in tears by the time she was at the NPC, is indicative of the helplessness and fear that was instilled in her by (Ong’s) disgusting conduct.”
Ong is noted to have seemed un-remorseful at his five-day trial and alleged that the police officer investigating him manipulated him into signing his statements, parts of which he claimed that the officer fabricated.