Vice-principal found guilty of performing sex acts on pupil
Judge convicts accused, 57, of sexually exploiting male pupil, with the first offence occurring in school gym when victim was 14
A primary school vice-principal (VP) was found guilty yesterday of sexually abusing an underage male pupil for about three years.
The offences were made known only about 12 years later when the victim made a police report.
District Judge Chay Yuen Fatt convicted the accused, now 57, of three charges of sexually exploiting a minor and five charges of carnal intercourse against the order of nature.
The VP, who had been suspended from duty since December 2015, cannot be named due to a gag order to protect the victim's identity.
The victim, now 30, came to Singapore from China with his mother when he was about nine.
In 2003, when the boy was in Primary 5, he was a vice-head prefect and saw the VP as his mentor.
That year, when the victim was working out in the school gym, the man pushed him against the wall and touched him inappropriately, Deputy Public Prosecutor James Chew told the court.
The victim, then 14, later said he did not know how to react and had doubts about what the man did as he respected him.
In 2004, the VP offered to tutor him in English on weekends, during which the sexual abuse continued.
He also showed the boy articles to convince him that such acts between two men were normal and healthy.
The victim testified during the trial that his mother was repatriated for working illegally in Singapore in 2002, after which he lived with a relative.
In 2004, when his relative could no longer be his guardian after his Primary School Leaving Examination, the VP became his guardian and asked him to move into his home and share his bed.
The victim said he felt honoured and privileged to move into the man's place and felt he had found a new home.
The offences continued until 2006.
But their sexual relations continued even when the victim was in junior college.
RESISTANT
In 2007, the victim became more resistant to the accused's advances, but he still gave in. By junior college, he knew what the man had told him about the sexual acts were not true.
In 2011, he discovered he had contracted gonorrhoea urethritis, a sexually transmitted disease, and decided to stop giving in to the man's advances.
In 2013, they went on a trip to Scandinavia, where the victim met a woman he would later marry.
He told her about what the accused had done to him, and she urged him to make a police report and move out of the man's home. Later that year, he moved into the woman's home.
But he was reluctant to make a police report.
The accused had also threatened to kill himself if a police report was made.
In 2015, the victim met the man's niece at work, and she encouraged him to make a police report after he told her what her uncle had done.
But he was still reluctant as he did not want his abuser to lose his job and he was afraid his parents would find out about the matter.
After he confided in a friend who was a law student, he opted for an "out-of-court" settlement by demanding $200,000 from the man as compensation.
Later that month, the accused agreed to a meeting during which he gave the victim a legal letter.
The victim made a police report the next day, about 12 years after the abuse began.
The man claimed trial and denied engaging in any sexual acts with the victim.
He said the victim had demanded compensation because he had caned him in 2004.
He also claimed the articles he showed the victim in 2004 were to educate him on erections.
But the prosecution argued there were text messages and a recorded phone conversation with the victim where the accused accepted his wrongdoing, was remorseful and open to paying compensation.
The victim did not have financial difficulties and had bought a condominium unit, so he had no reason to extort money from the accused.
He would also have made a police report if he was being blackmailed by the victim, but he did not, the prosecution added.
The man will be sentenced on Sept 24.
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