MMA instructor jailed for underage sex caught with possibly largest haul of child porn from an individual in S'pore

Shaffiq Idris Alkhatib
The Straits Times
Mar 2, 2017

An American mixed martial arts instructor was jailed for four years on Thursday (March 2) after having sex with two underage girls and recording the acts with his mobile phone.

Joshua Robinson, now 39, was also caught with 321 films containing child pornography featuring children as young as two years old. 

This is believed to be the largest number of such films seized from a single person in Singapore.

Once, he even showed a six-year-old girl an obscene film of him engaged in a sexual act with a woman.

On Feb 13, Robinson, who used to be a senior visual effects artist, pleaded guilty to four counts of making obscene films and three counts of having consensual sex with minors.

He also admitted to one count each of being in possession of obscene films and exhibiting an obscene object to a child.

Twenty other charges for similar offences were taken into consideration during sentencing.

He met his first victim, who was then 15 years old, through a dating website and they went to his home at the Riverwalk Apartments in Upper Circular Road on Sept 11, 2013.

They had unprotected sexual intercourse and he recorded the act with his mobile phone.

The pair had sex at least two more times after this and he recorded both encounters.

He met his second victim, who was also 15 years old, on June 23, 2015, and they went to his home where they had unprotected sexual intercourse.

He recorded the act without her consent. When she left his apartment, the court heard she broke into tears, had a "mental breakdown" and told her parents, who alerted the police.

Two days later, officers seized his computer and portable hard drive where they found 5,902 obscene films.

The court heard that 321 of them contained child pornography.

About a month later, Robinson went to a martial arts gym where he was a participant, and showed the obscene video to a six-year-old girl while her father was training.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Nicholas Lai said: "After the accused had shown (the girl) the video, he asked (her) whether she liked it. (The girl) did not reply.

"He then told (her) not to tell anyone by putting his finger to his lips and saying 'shhhhh'."

The girl told her father about what had happened when they reached home and he alerted the police.

For each count of having sex with a minor, Robinson could have been jailed up to 10 years and fined.

And for each count of making an obscene film, he could have been jailed up to two years and fined between $20,000 and $40,000.