Warning: This article contains descriptions of sexual harassment. Reader discretion is advised.

A 24-year-old Malaysian man, Khoo Wei Yang, who is a Singapore permanent resident, pleaded guilty to using criminal force to outrage the modesty of a schoolgirl in July 2022.

He was sentenced to five months' jail on Sep. 25 (Monday).

To satisfy his "urges", Khoo stroked his exposed penis when taking a lift with an 11-year-old girl, and brushed it against her elbow.

He was arrested the next day, after the girl lodged a police report against him. However, following the incident, the victim was unwilling to leave her home for days.

The identity of the victim has been protected by a gag order.

The incident

According to court documents, the incident took place on Jul. 7, 2022.

At about 4:30pm, the victim was on her way home from school. Both she and Khoo entered the same lift.

The victim pressed the button for the sixth floor, where she lived.

Although he lived on the second floor, Khoo did not press the button for his floor.

Instead, he pressed the button for the eighth floor.

On the way up, he stood one palm-length behind the victim.

He then exposed his penis and started stroking it.

The victim saw Khoo doing this from the reflection on the lift's glass panel, and averted her gaze downwards in fear.

However, Khoo took this one step further by touching her left elbow with his penis, and rubbing against it for about two seconds.

While he was doing so, the victim was too scared to move.

Tried to talk to her, watched as she walked back to her unit

As the girl stepped out of the lift upon reaching the sixth floor, Khoo followed her.

He tried to engage her in conversation by telling her that she had dropped something on the floor.

The victim briefly turned back and realised she had not dropped anything, so she continued walking towards her unit.

Along the way, she turned back another time and spotted Khoo standing at a corner watching her.

When Khoo realised he had been seen, he returned to the lift.

The victim waited for Khoo to leave before going into her unit.

Said he did it because of his "urges"

Later that night, the victim's father brought her to Bishan Neighbourhood Police Centre to lodge a police report.

Khoo was arrested on Jul. 8, the next day, and was released on bail on Jul. 9.

During investigations, he admitted that he had outraged the victim's modesty due to his "urges".

Incident left victim fearful

Following the incident, the victim was fearful, and she did not leave home for a few days.

She also refused to take the lift on her own and needed to be escorted when doing so.

When she eventually did so on her own, she would look around to make sure that Khoo was not nearby before entering the lift.

It was only when her father told her he had been caught that she felt safer.

Khoo exploited victim's helplessness & made her fearful: Prosecution

The prosecution asked for a sentence of six to eight months' imprisonment for Khoo, asserting that he had "exploited the helplessness of the victim in an enclosed space" and "touched the victim with his private part skin-on-skin, which scared her."

"The offence was committed in a lift, which is an enclosed space that the victim could not easily extricate herself from and where there was no one to witness the incidents or help her," the prosecution elaborated.

Another aggravating factor pointed out by the prosecution was the fear that the victim felt after the incident.

"While there was no serious psychological harm caused, the victim nevertheless was fearful, had altered her daily habits and made to feel fearful in her own housing block as a result of the offences," the prosecution added.

For outraging the modesty of a person below 14 years old, Khoo could have faced a jail sentence of up to five years, a fine, and caning.

Top image from Unsplash (for illustration purposes).

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