Teen molested by church acquaintance after chance meeting
Man who committed offence on teen had previous conviction
A young man was molested after a chance meeting with an old church acquaintance on a bus last year.
Wong Cheung Pok, now 63, bumped into the then-18-year-old boy last April 4 and invited him to his flat for a drink.
The student, who had lost contact with him in 2014, followed him home.
He then accepted Wong's offer of a massage, but Wong then molested the teen, who cannot be named to protect his identity.
Wong, a slim bespectacled man, was jailed for seven months yesterday after pleading guilty to one count of outrage of modesty.
At around 11.30pm on April 4 last year, Wong was travelling home on an SBS bus after meeting some friends at Chinatown when the boy boarded the bus at Moulmein Road.
Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) James Chew said that they knew each other as they used to attend the same church and Wong was also acquainted with his victim's family.
They chatted and later got off at the same bus stop as they live near each other in central Singapore.
Wong invited the boy home and prepared a cup of Milo for him.
At Wong's suggestion, they then went to his bedroom to talk.
When District Judge Samuel Chua asked DPP Chew why the boy agreed to follow Wong home even though it was late, the latter replied: "He simply accepted the offer as this was a church acquaintance... an older man that (he thought) he could trust."
The boy accepted Wong's offer of a massage and was told to lie face down on a bed.
Wong started to massage the boy shortly after midnight and told him to remove his shorts.
Even though the boy protested, Wong pulled it down and started massaging his naked buttocks.
The teenager was told to turn over and Wong then molested him.
Wong also asked sexually explicit questions but the teen ignored them.
About 10 minutes into the "massage", the boy pulled up his shorts, left the flat and went home.
Feeling humiliated after being molested, he told his mother about his ordeal and she made a police report at around 2am.
On the police's request, Wong reported to Tanglin Police Division the next day and admitted to the offence.
DPP Chew urged the judge to sentence him to nine months' jail and stressed that he had made use of their relationship to "engineer the opportunity" to molest his victim.
He also said that Wong was jailed for three weeks in 1999 for committing a similar offence.
Wong's lawyer Mr Loh Kia Meng asked for his client to be jailed for four months. He added that the offence was not premeditated and the boy was not weak and vulnerable.
Before handing out the sentence, Judge Chua said that there was no evidence that the boy was weaker than Wong. He was not inclined to impose a higher sentence as the victim is not considered a vulnerable victim, either physically or psychologically.
The victim had also voluntarily gone to Wong's flat and allowed him to massage him. He could have left at any time, the judge said.
However, he noted that Wong had touched his victim's private parts.
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