A British language tutor was sentenced to one-and-a-half years’ jail and three strokes of the cane on Wednesday (March 3) for molesting a three-year-old girl under her dress for 15 minutes during a lesson with other young children around.
Richard Christopher Monks, 29, pleaded guilty a month ago to one count of molesting a minor under 14.
While working as a reading specialist at a language training and literacy centre, he would play a video for his young students.
He molested the little girl as she watched the video.
He got her to sit at a table in the middle of the room, surrounded by eight chairs. As she watched the video, he repeatedly caressed her buttocks. He also aimed a mobile phone camera at her buttocks.
She later told her mother that “teacher Richard” had touched her.
The child attended his lessons every Saturday afternoon. She cannot be named due to a gag order to protect her identity.
Even though the room had a closed-circuit television camera (CCTV), he would prevent his actions from being seen. The children’s upper bodies would block the camera’s view of his hands. The lower halves of their bodies also would not be captured.
During the video-watching session, Monks molested the victim multiple times over 15 minutes. She expressed her discomfort by fidgeting and turning back to look at him several times but he did not stop.
The CCTV footage also captured him repeatedly pointing another mobile phone camera at her buttocks, a report by Today Online said.
Monks was arrested on Nov 1, 2018, after returning to Singapore from a four-day trip to Thailand. However, police were not able to recover his phone or the footage on it as he claimed to have lost his phone during the trip.
Monks began serving his sentence immediately.
For his offence, he could have been jailed for up to five years, fined and caned. /TISG