He was 42 and she, only 13. Yet, they declared themselves
“lao gong” and “lao po” (Chinese for husband and
wife).
The martial arts instructor, who is a father of two, and his
student alleged had a sexual relationship when she was 13.
They even went to a temple and “solemnised” their “marriage”,
said the prosecution in their opening statement.
The man is standing trial for three charges of statutory rape
and four charges of sexual exploitation, reported The New
Paper.
He is unable to be named as the identity of the girl, who is now
a Secondary Five student, has to be protected.
The court understood that they met when she joined her school’s
martial arts club in 2007, when she was in Secondary One. He was
then the instructor of the club.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Chua Ying-Hong told the court that the
girl and some of her team mates visited his house on February 20,
2007, the third day of the Chinese New Year.
They left a few hours later and headed to a nearby shopping
centre, where the girl realised that her appointment had been
cancelled and she contacted the man to tell him.
He then offered to keep her company and drove to pick her up in
a car and went for a drive. Along the way, they stopped for a smoke
and had a chat before having dinner back in his flat.
Later at night, he text messaged the girl to ask her to be his
girlfriend, and she agreed.
In March 2007, the couple drove to Turnhouse Road, near Changi,
and proceeded to have sex in his car.
The court was also told that in the following month, they had
sex in his car on two separate occasions.
on May 4, 2007, four months after they got to know each other,
the man took the girl to a temple in Yishun where they prayed and
“solemnised” their “marriage” to each other.
By that time, the relationship had caught the attention of the
school’s principal after she received a call from a relative of one
of the man’s students stating that the instructor and the girl were
having an “unhealthy relationship” which was “more than that of a
master and disciple”.
The principal then asked the teacher-in-charge of the club and
the school’s discipline mistress to investigate further. However
their efforts were in vain as the students did not reveal anything
out of the ordinary.
While all this was going on, rumours were spreading in school
about the couple’s relationship.
The teacher-in-charge testified that the man had called her to
clarify that nothing was going on between him and the girl. She
also said that the man’s wife had contacted her to ask if there was
anything going on.
“She said, ‘I’m begging you, please tell me because this has
happened before.”
“I told her the truth at that time, there was no evidence to
suggest anything,” the teacher-in-charge said.
However, in May, a student approached the teacher to tell her
that the instructor was “going steady” with the girl.
Another trainee also revealed to the teacher that the man had
once instructed her to lie to his wife that there was a training
session on a particular day, reported TNP.
At the same time, the caller who tipped off the principal
contacted her again to say that the man and the girl were having a
relationship.
The discipline mistress testified in court that when she
confronted the girl about the issue on May 10, 2007, she appeared
to be “quite evasive”.
Sensing that the girl was lying, she then asked for her mobile
phone and checked her text inbox where she found “intimate
messages” sent from a “lao gong’, whose number matched that of the
instructor.
The discipline mistress also found a photograph of the couple,
together with a long romantic poem.
The girl even mentioned on her blog that she liked the
instructor.
The discipline mistress also discovered that the girl had been
to the man’s house on several occasions for dinner.
She said, “(The man) would drive the students home after
dinner.
“The second last person to be dropped off would usually be (a
male trainee) and the last person would normally be the girl.”
After all this was revealed, the man was summoned to the
principal’s office and notified that his services would be
terminated.
He was also asked to cease all contact with the girl and the
other students.
The girl was sent for counselling, where she revealed her sexual
relationship with the man, which included holding hands, kissing
and sex.
“She mentioned that they always had sex in his car,” the
counsellor told the court.
The man’s wife also confronted the girl after she had found out
about their affair.
The girl’s mother lodged a police report after being informed of
the situation. The man was then arrested on May 16.
“She was very uncomfortable (while speaking to the police)…
There were many things they (the police) asked her, and she did not
understand many of the terms,” said the counsellor, who was asked
by the girl to accompany her to the police station to make the
report, and again when her statement was taken.
In the defence’s opening statement, Mr Martin Decruz argued that
they did not have sex against the girl’s will, and that the girl
had suffered no trauma.
He added that he had evidence to prove that the man had alibis
on Feb 28, 2007, one of the days he was accused to have committed
indecent acts with the girl, wrote TNP. The man is now out
on bail.
If convicted of statutory rape, he can be jailed for up to 20
years and caned. If conducted of sexual exploitation, he can be
jailed two years and fined S$5,000.
-- Yahoo! News
