Cash-short girl, 14, asked boyfriend to get men for her
A 14-YEAR-OLD girl who needed money to pay her bills hit on a
shocking solution: she asked her boyfriend if he had friends who
would be willing to pay for her sexual services. Then, after she
had slept with at least five of them, she reported them all,
including her boyfriend, to the police.
The girl's boyfriend, a 19-year-old national serviceman, had
invited each of them to pay to have sex with her.
Two months later, in September last year, she made a police report
stating that she had had sex with several different men on
different occasions. The boyfriend, now 20, and five others were
later charged with having sex with an underage girl.
Yesterday, operations assistant Muhammad Taufiq Sahak, 21, became
the fifth person convicted for having sex with her. He was jailed
for two months.
Two others have been jailed, one for eight months, the other for
three. Another was sent to a boys' home. The fourth was given
probation.
The case of the boyfriend, who faces nine charges of having sex
with her, is expected to be mentioned on Nov 21. Police
investigations are ongoing to trace the rest.
A person convicted of having sex with an underage girl can be
jailed for up to five years and fined up to $10,000.
It was not mentioned in court why the girl went to the police after
having instigated the encounters.
Yesterday, a district court heard that, in July last year, the
boyfriend had called Taufiq, then his NS camp mate, and told him
that a girl was offering sex for $30. Taufiq said he was not
interested.
He offered again on another occasion and, this time, Taufiq agreed.
The boyfriend introduced the girl to him at a Woodlands coffee shop
before taking them to his home at a nearby condominium.
Taufiq then had sex with the girl in one of the bedrooms, paid her
$30 and left.
Pleading for leniency yesterday, Taufiq's lawyer S.S. Dhillon said
that, at first, his client thought the girl, who was wearing a very
short skirt and a body-hugging top, was at least 18 years
old.
But just before they were about to have sex, his friend suddenly
mentioned that she was under 16. Taufiq claimed he had 'little time
to react'.
Taufiq went home and put the matter behind him, but in May this
year, he was contacted by the Criminal Investigation Department's
Serious Sexual Crime Branch.
He had been implicated by the girl's boyfriend, who was arrested on
the same charge, Mr Dhillon said.
The lawyer noted that the act had been between two consenting
individuals in the context of a prostitute-patron scenario. He
stressed that his client was young and it was a one-off
offence.
'Taufiq did not employ trickery. He did not coerce the girl
either,' he said.
The girl, he noted, was far more 'street-smart' than his client,
who was a virgin before he had sex with her.
