A Singaporean male former teacher has been sentenced to jail on Aug. 15, 2024, for possession of child pornography, as well as for preventing police from accessing his phone and laptop.

Eugene Quake, 40, was jailed for 13 months, CNA reported.

Two additional charges, for possessing 3,769 obscene films, and making 23 obscene films, were also taken into consideration.

The Ministry of Education (MOE) told CNA that Quake had been suspended since March 2023, and was no longer teaching in any school.

Obscene telegram chat

Back in 2020, Quake downloaded the messaging application Telegram, according to court documents.

He soon discovered that there were many chat groups on the platform where members would share same-sex pornography. Quake joined these groups to view such pornography.

The groups, however, would also share child abuse material. These include images of children in sexual poses, and children engaged in sexual activities with other children or with adults.

Quake also admitted to having viewed videos of adults having anal sex with babies and infants on the Telegram chat groups.

The deputy public prosecutor (DPP) described the content of the chats as "incredibly depraved".

Quake had set his Telegram chats to "auto download", leading to all of the videos being downloaded to his phone.

Raided

Quake's house was raided on Mar. 15, 2023, at about 8:50am, by the Singapore Police Force (SPF) following a tip-off.

Police seized several of Quake's belongings as case exhibits.

These included Quake's primary phone, a white iPhone he used for daily communication, a backup black iPhone, a MacBook, and a black Seagate portable drive.

Quake provided the police with the personal identification number (PIN) to his backup black iPhone.

Police could also access his portable Seagate drive as it was not encrypted, and it was found to contain 10 still images of child abuse material.

According to court documents, the images capture the abuse of a total of 13 children. The children being abused were assessed to have been between 10 to 14 years old.

Faces of the children were visible in most of the images, with some featuring "extremely disturbing content".

Prevented police from accessing devices

Quake admitted to the police that he had used the white iPhone and his MacBook to view pornography.

Police wanted access to the devices, believing that they contained more child abuse material. However, Quake refused to give up the PIN for them.

Quake was served a notice by police on Mar. 15, 2023, to provide the PIN.

He was warned that a failure to comply with the notice may constitute an obstruction of justice.

Quake refused, preventing police from accessing his laptop and white iPhone.

The DPP said Quake's actions were "clearly designed to stonewall police investigations into a serious offence."

Top photo from Canva.