Former S'pore secondary school teacher, 41, allegedly committed indecent acts with underage student & promised to marry her in future, pleads not guilty to sexual grooming

A former secondary school teacher in Singapore has been accused of sexually grooming an underage student and committing indecent acts with her in a parked car.

The married man, 41, also allegedly promised to date and marry her in the future.

He pleaded not guilty to the charges in court on Mar. 17, according to CNA.

A gag order was imposed over the identities of the accused, the victim and their school.

Inappropriate relationship

According to court documents seen by Mothership, the man had been a fully trained teacher since 2014 and taught at the school since 2020.

The student was enrolled in a module he taught that lasted for the first half of 2022.

She was a Secondary Two student between the ages of 13 and 14 at the time.

The pair allegedly met up frequently for the accused to help her with mathematics, despite him not teaching the subject.

He also provided her with consultations on the subject he taught, and they met frequently outside of these consultations between September 2022 and January 2023.

In these months, they communicated regularly on WhatsApp, often outside of working hours and about personal matters.

The student was noted to have addressed the man with endearing terms like "dearest daddy", while he called her "dearest daughter" 94 times.

He also gave her unsolicited compliments on her physical appearance at least 24 times between Sep. 21, 2022 and Oct. 29, 2022.

Victim's testimony

In court, the student testified that she grew closer to the man after he first offered to stay back with her to help with "whatever [she] need[ed] help with".

By July or August 2022, they met for math consultations two to three times a week after school, each session lasting one to two hours.

The former teacher would also provide her with advice on friendship-related issues and check in on her well-being, as he knew that she was experiencing academic stress.

She explained that he was the only person she shared these struggles with as she felt like other teachers, her friends and family did not understand her the way he did.

Beginning in August 2022, the accused allegedly made physical contact with the student during consultations, including holding her hand or face or patting her face.

As they usually met in an open space, he would ensure no one was around before touching her, or hold her hand under the table to minimise the risk of detection.

The girl said she allowed him to do so as she perceived that they were close.

Code of conduct

The prosecution said the man was aware that his actions were inappropriate.

As a teacher, he was obligated to abide by a code of professional conduct, including avoiding meeting up with students at external venues or being in an enclosed space with students.

Educators also had to fully appreciate that the onus was on them and not the student to distance themselves from any potentially inappropriate situations, court documents noted.

Some time around Nov. 16, 2022, the accused was warned by the subject head of his module to keep his distance from the student.

The other teacher also warned him about the inappropriateness of the student calling him "daddy".

Upon hearing this, the accused deleted all the photos the student had sent him via WhatsApp, instructed her to "unstar" messages he had sent her and delete all interactions between them.

He also suggested they moved their conversations to Instagram using the vanishing mode.

Indecent acts in a parked car

Some time at the end of 2022, the accused formed a hackathon team as part of his module and invited the student to join it, even though she was no longer taking the subject.

On Nov. 28, 2022, the pair left the school together following a meeting with the rest of the hackathon team to purchase some required materials.

In a rented GetGo car, they bought food at McDonald's outlet and ate it at a multi-storey car park before proceeding to buy the materials.

Later, they drove to and parked at the multi-storey car park, then moved to sit together in the back seat of the car and talked about personal matters.

There, the man gave the student a hug, which she reciprocated by kissing him on the cheek.

They spent about an hour and 40 minutes in the car park, court documents noted.

The victim testified that at one point in the backseat of the car, the accused kissed the side of her lip, which prompted her to confront him.

He responded that he "can’t help it because [her] lips are beside [her] cheeks".

He also allegedly stroked the girl's thigh with his thumb while there, she said.

Other indecent acts during hackathon

She also testified that there were at least five other instances of alleged inappropriate acts during the period of the hackathon.

On one occasion, the accused used his staff pass to grant them access into a school lab, in which the man hugged the girl multiple times, touched her hand and patted her head.

On another occasion, he asked the girl to follow him behind a wall where they were out of her teammates' sight, then hugged her and kissed her on the cheeks.

He also instructed her to sit on his lap in a meeting room once, after which he stroked her stomach with his thumb, hugged her more than 10 times and kissed her on the cheeks and forehead.

He also allegedly told her that he had not had sex with his wife in two years.

Accused instructed her not to tell anyone

The victim said her former teacher instructed her several times not to tell anyone about the incident in the car on Nov. 28, 2022, lest his actions were perceived as grooming.

When the pair met again in January 2023, he allegedly hugged her and kissed her forehead a few times at an alley behind the school hall, and she reciprocated by hugging him.

They also told each other "I love you" and "I miss you" several times, she said.

Accused began ill treating victim

Some time in May 2023, the accused told the student that they could not “be close” anymore, which she understood to mean that they could no longer be affectionate physically or use terms like "daddy" or "daughter".

He then began treating her poorly, calling her "mentally ill" and told her she was demanding.

He also started avoiding her whenever they walked past each other.

The girl was initially devastated and her academic grades began plummeting, but upon hearing rumours about the man touching girls on their heads and showing his favouritism towards another female student, she later realised she may have been sexually groomed by her teacher.

She confirmed this with the second student and suggested they reported the man to the principal together.

They did so on Oct. 10, 2023.

Victim's testimony found to be credible

The victim's testimony was found credible by the prosecution, who said she "never wavered" despite being challenged in court.

Multiple messages also proved her testimony that she had been groomed.

One such conversation showed him asking, "Can I be greedy and want both?", when asked by the student if he preferred kisses or hugs.

In another message, he told her that he would date her in the future, marry her and make her his wife.

The prosecution said this showed that the accused "systematically exploited" his knowledge that the victim was a young girl he claimed was struggling with a myriad of issues, including mental health, body image and confidence.

Instead of referring the girl to trained female school counsellors, he chose to foster dependence and affection by making claims that he "will only retire after [she] graduates" because she needs him, said the prosecution.

At one point, he told the victim that she was more important to him than even his wife, friends, parents and sister.

He also extended personal favours to the student, including vowing to vouch for her to enter the express stream and the student council's executive committee.

"The accused maintained an obsessive and relentless line of communication, speaking with the complainant morning, noon, and night, every single day of the week — conduct he admitted was a violation of professional boundaries," said the prosecution.

The prosecution also said the man's conduct was "not a series of accidental lapses or misunderstood care", but a "deliberate, calculated, and persistent campaign of grooming".

Following the incident, the victim was noted to be traumatised and had developed a deep fear of the man and of attending school due to his presence.

She broke down in tears and began hyperventilating in court at one point, the prosecution noted.

The case will be heard again in court on Apr. 28.

Top images via Canva