S’porean man, 40, downloaded over 8,000 videos & images of child sexual abuse, to be jailed & caned

A 40-year-old Singaporean, Lin Zhenyang, has been sentenced to 23 months in prison and two strokes of the cane for possessing over 8,000 images and videos of child sexual abuse.

He pleaded guilty to one charge of possessing child sexual abuse materials, while another charge for possessing 12,896 obscene films was taken into consideration for sentencing, The Straits Times reported.

He will begin serving his sentence on Feb. 24.

Joined a Telegram group that shared child sexual abuse pornography

According to court documents seen by Mothership, Lin began downloading and viewing pornography when he was 16.

A few years prior to 2021, he was browsing various website when he came across a link to a Telegram group.

Upon joining the group, he discovered that it would frequently share pornographic material on the group, including videos containing child sexual abuse material.

Members of this Telegram group would also share links to other groups and Lin would click on these links to join the other groups as he wanted to download more pornographic material.

Lin's lawyer, Muslim Albakri, was quoted by The Straits Times as saying that the Telegram groups effectively "opened the floodgates" for Lin, who was using pornography to cope with stress at work and in his personal life.

Lin would download the pornographic photos and media from Telegram onto his personal hard drives.

Lin also admitted to not deleting the photos and videos, even after realising they contained child abuse.

Nearly 40 per cent of the pornography he had was child abuse material

Lin was subsequently arrested on Oct. 15, 2021, when the police conducted a raid at his flat after they acted on information they had received.

A total of 1,136 videos and 7,277 images containing child abuse material were found in his possession.

Lin had accumulated these media from the various Telegram groups he had joined.

Videos and photographs containing child abuse material formed 39.5 per cent of the total number of obscene films found in his possession.

In their sentencing submissions, the prosecution said that the videos found in his possession were "exceptionally depraved" and called for a prison sentence of 23 to 25 months and two to three strokes of the cane.

According to court documents, some of the material involved victims as young as three to five months old.

During his mitigation plea, Lin's lawyer said that his client had never searched for, consumed or showed any inclination towards child pornography, The Straits Times reported.

Lin also claimed that the accumulation of child pornography was due to him downloading pornography without discrimination.

In response, the prosecution said Lin was aware that some of the materials he downloaded contained child sexual abuse, yet he did not delete them.

A person convicted of possessing or accessing child abuse material can be jailed for up to five years, fined or caned.

Top photo via Mothership