'You should not have the victim' defiled
She had abused her position as a teacher when she French-kissed a Primary 6 pupil from her school and left love bites on him in 2012.
District Judge Ng Peng Hong had harsh words for the married 42-year-old mother of four before sentencing her to six months' jail yesterday.
"This case involved the sexual grooming and exploitation of a young victim... by a school teacher. (The woman), as a teacher and educator, should not have defiled and corrupted the young victim," he said.
The woman, who cannot be named to protect the boy's identity, pleaded guilty on Feb 5 to two counts of performing an indecent act on him.
Two other similar charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.
Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Santhra Aiyyasamy said the boy and the woman became acquainted in early 2012 as he played in a football team with her son.
The teacher of 11 years also taught Malay dance to the victim's two sisters in their school in western Singapore.
As a result, the boy and his siblings frequently interacted with the woman and her children.
He visited her home on several occasions and added her as a contact on Facebook in April that year. They chatted online occasionally after this.
Before watching a movie together in late October, they went to a park and chatted, DPP Santhra said.
She then gave the boy a hickey on his right shoulder. She also French-kissed him before they left for the cinema.
They met again on Nov 13 at the Singapore Botanic Gardens, where she performed similar acts on him.
The boy's mother saw a hickey on his neck the next day and told her husband. They confronted their son who admitted that the teacher had done this to him.
They informed the school about her and made a police report the next day.
In mitigation, her lawyer, Mr Peter Fernando, said that she had been diagnosed with a major depressive disorder and was being treated with oral medication.
However, Judge Ng found there was no causal link between the offences and the psychiatric condition.
He stressed that the sexual exploitation of any young person was "completely unacceptable and must be deterred".
The accused looked dazed as she was sentenced. Five members of her family, including her husband and sister, looked devastated when they heard she would be sent to jail.
When The New Paper later approached her husband, he declined to comment.
For each charge of committing an indecent act on a minor, the woman could have been jailed up to five years and fined up to $10,000.
(The woman), as a teacher and educator, should not have defiled and corrupted the young victim.
- District Judge Ng Peng Hong
FEMALE TEACHERS BEHAVING BADLY
CASE 1
A former primary school teacher was the first woman in Singapore to be hauled to court for being sexually intimate with an underage boy.
She was jailed for 10 months on Feb 23, 2009, after pleading guilty to one charge of having sex with the boy.
At the time, the married teacher was 31 and the boy was 15.
The woman, who taught moral education and Chinese, had sex with the boy six times between March and May in 2008.
CASE 2
A 32-year-old teacher in a top school, who had earned a number of promotions in her eight years in the service, ended up having sex with a 15-year-old boy from her school.
The married mother of two young children and the victim had sex nine times from December 2011 to January 2012. The petite, bespectacled woman was jailed for a year on Oct 29, 2012, after pleading guilty to two counts of having sex with an underage boy.
CASE 3
He lost his virginity to his 31-year-old teacher after things got out of hand when she showed him how to kiss.
But their illicit affair unravelled when the 13-year-old boy flew into jealous fits and turned violent.
The Primary 6 pupil hurled objects, including a chair, at her and even punched her on the arm in front of his classmates.
The married mother of three and the boy were sexually intimate six times between May and July 2011.
She was jailed for a year on March 14 last year.
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