Polytechnic student admits to trapping and molesting girl in school toilet

Kok Yufeng
The New Paper
November 15, 2019

He had molested her once before in a Yishun flat, where he grabbed the 17-year-old girl's right breast and left buttock.

The polytechnic student, also 17, then molested her again a week later when they returned to their alma mater, a secondary school in northern Singapore.

Trapping her in a female toilet cubicle, he grabbed her breast and touched her private parts twice, undeterred by her attempts to break free.

The boy pleaded guilty yesterday to outraging the girl's modesty, with a second molest charge taken into consideration.

Both teenagers cannot be named because of a gag order issued by the court to protect the victim's identity.

District Judge May Mesenas noted the many aggravating factors in the case, and called for both reformative training and probation suitability reports as the boy was unrepresented in court.

He had nothing to say in mitigation.

He first molested the girl, a fellow cadet in the National Police Cadet Corps (NPCC), on July 26.

The boy struck again when they went back to their alma mater on Aug 2 to help conduct NPCC training.

After training ended at about 6pm, the pair went to the canteen with some friends, where he told her a female cadet had borrowed a pencil from him earlier and asked her to help find it.

This was a pretext, Deputy Public Prosecutor Phoebe Tan told the court, and after searching classrooms, they decided to check the female toilets.

Making sure no one was inside, the boy followed the girl in and suggested going into the last cubicle - the biggest one.

When they entered, he locked the cubicle door behind him and molested the girl over her clothes. He also asked if they could do various sex acts.

She kicked him away with her right leg and tried to fend him off by pushing him away but was unsuccessful.

Whenever she tried to reach for the cubicle door, the boy would block her and push her. He would also grab her shoulders at times and try to push her on to the toilet seat.

DPP Tan said the girl kept trying to escape but she could not overpower the boy.

It was only when a security guard called her on her handphone to ask about her visitor pass that she was able to push the boy's hands away and unlock the cubicle door.

It is not clear how long the incident lasted.

The boy later apologised to the girl via text message, but she made a police report the next day on the advice of the NPCC teacher-in-charge, whom she had confided in.

DPP Tan sought a reformative training suitability report, telling Judge Mesenas the boy's offence would typically warrant five to 15 months' jail and caning.

It occurred in a confined space, where the victim was unable to escape despite her best efforts, and there was premeditation as he had lured her into the toilet cubicle, she said.

The boy is in remand and will return to court next Thursday.