Two men paid 15-year-old boys they met on Grindr for sex

Wong Shiying
The Straits Times
January 4, 2023

Two men have been jailed for engaging in sex acts with 15-year-old boys whom they befriended on gay dating app Grindr.

Ethan Yan Weilun, 46, was sentenced to 14 months’ jail on Jan 4 after pleading guilty to a charge of having sex with a minor. Three similar charges were taken into consideration for his sentencing.

Lim Kar Heng, 45, was sentenced to 10 months’ jail on Jan 3 after admitting to a count of having sex with a minor. Another charge of possessing 529 obscene films was taken into consideration for his sentencing.

Both men met their victims on Grindr in late 2021 while looking for people to have sex with.

Yan offered a teenager $50 for sex, and they met four times at the accused’s home between October 2021 and February 2022.

He knew the victim was between 15 and 16 years old at the time, and had asked the teen to introduce him to other boys of his age or younger.

Lim offered a different teenager $40 to perform an indecent act on him, and the latter did so at a multi-storey carpark in October 2021. He noticed the teenager looked younger than 18 – the minimum age required to create an account on Grindr – but did not ask for his age, the court heard.

Both men did not use condoms.

Their offences came to light when the victims spoke to school counsellors and lodged police reports.

In mitigation, Yan’s lawyer, Ms A. Meenakshi from IRB Law, said her client did not coerce or pressure the victim into engaging in sex acts, and there was no abuse of trust as they did not know one another prior to connecting on Grindr.

For sexual penetration of a minor aged above 14 but below 16, an offender can be jailed for up to 10 years and fined.