Teacher who molested pupil loses appeal against conviction
The head of department (HOD) of character and citizenship education (CCE) in a primary school who molested a student in his office has failed in his appeal against his conviction.
In a judgment dated July 22, Justice Vincent Hoong upheld the conviction over five charges of aggravated outrage of modesty, following which the defence said they were not continuing an appeal against the sentence of four years’ jail.
Apart from his role as an HOD, the offender had also been the teacher in charge of scouts, and the victim had been a member of the co-curricular activity.
In a statement in July 2021, the Ministry of Education told The Straits Times that the offender had been suspended from duty since November 2018.
He cannot be named owing to a gag order to protect the victim’s identity.
During the trial, the prosecution said that the offender and the student had a close relationship, and the teacher would speak privately with the victim in his cubicle on matters relating to scouts, the victim’s studies, and the victim’s family circumstances.
Some time in 2017, the victim confided in the teacher about some family issues. The teacher was aware that the victim’s parents were divorced and that he had a poor relationship with his stepfather.
According to the prosecution during the trial, the victim, who was between 10 and 11 years old at that time, was molested by the teacher on five different occasions between November 2017 and October 2018 in his cubicle.
The prosecution had argued that while the boy was speaking with the teacher in the cubicle, the teacher used his finger to touch the victim’s private parts over his shorts for a few seconds. After each incident, the victim left the office feeling uncomfortable.
During the trial, the offender said that he could not have committed several of the offences that were said to have occurred in the cubicle in HOD Room 2, as he had been using a different cubicle at the time.
In his appeal, the offender submitted that the district judge who had convicted him had wrongly rejected evidence produced by his colleague who had previously sat in the cubicle where the offences occurred.
The offender argued that the colleague who had been using the cubicle in HOD Room 2 before him could have moved to another room only after Dec 12, 2017, since the room he moved to was undergoing renovations until then.
However, according to the judgment, the former occupant of the cubicle conceded during trial that he was unsure as to when exactly he had moved out of HOD Room 2.
Noting this and the fact that multiple witnesses had testified to the fact that the offender was occupying the cubicle by the end of 2017, Justice Hoong dismissed the claim.
In his appeal, the teacher who was represented by Mr Ramesh Tiwary, also argued that the victim was inconsistent as to the date of the incident with respect to one of the charges.
Initially framed as Oct 10, 2018 and then Oct 11, 2018, the date was eventually amended to some time in October 2018.
Justice Hoong said the discrepancy was “not a material one in view of the four to five years that elapsed between the incidents and the trial”.
“It was reasonable for the victim to have difficulty recalling the specific dates and this did not necessarily mean that the charges were not proven.”
Get The New Paper on your phone with the free TNP app. Download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store now