SINGAPORE: He told her that they were going to meet
his friends at a secluded forested area near Mandai
Road.
But it quickly turned into a nightmare for a
16-year-old girl, who had to cover herself in newspapers and seek
help after she was stripped naked and molested by a 58-year-old
man.
Tan Leng Hwa, who was 42-years-old at the time of
the 1996 offence, was jailed four years and two months on Tuesday
for one count of aggravated outrage of modesty.
Tan, who was charged for the offence in 1997, was also found guilty
of a second charge of failure to attend court that year, after he
left Singapore for Johor Bahru and absconded bail for 14
years.
The court heard Tan had befriended the girl, who was a secondary
school student then, at a block in Marsiling Lane in 1996.
Sometime later that year, he drove her to a dark forested area off
Mandai Road, under the pretext that they were going to look for his
friends there.
Shortly after, the tall and tanned man asked her to be his lover.
She rejected him, but this did not stop him from kissing her and
caressing her breasts. Her efforts to break free from the car also
failed as he restrained her and also removed her spectacles to
hinder her escape.
His attempts did not let up even when she succeeded in running out
of the car, as he managed to pull off her shirt in the process. He
even followed her out of the car to hug her and remove her bra,
before touching her breasts again. He then continued pulling off
her shorts and underwear despite her struggles.
The court heard that the girl was completely naked when she
eventually fought herself free.
Tan had left the place when he lost track of her.
Failing to recover her clothes, the victim covered herself with
newspapers before running to the main road for help.
A taxi driver passing by spotted her. He gave the girl his shirt to
cover herself up, before driving her to a police post.
A medical report revealed that she suffered multiple abrasions on
her breasts, buttocks and limbs.
The court heard that Tan surrendered himself to the police a few
weeks later.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Davyd Chong who described the offence as
"highly intrusive", called for a jail term of more than three
years.
Mr Chong said that the girl, who is now 31-years-old, "had to
suffer the indignity and humiliation" of having to publicly seek
help while clothed in newspapers.
He added that the "trauma, anguish and psychological impact the
attack had on the girl, will certainly leave her scarred for the
rest of her life."
He also told the court that Tan has a propensity of violence and
has a string of previous offences, dating as far back as 1975.
These included theft, possession of a gun without a license, and
armed robbery, which saw Tan receiving an eight year jail term and
20 strokes of the cane, then.
-CNA/ac