A 39-year-old man was found guilty of molesting at least six schoolgirls aged between 10 and 17 and sentenced to three years of imprisonment, including 10 strokes of the cane on Friday.
The accused, Aldrin Illias is a staff nurse at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital. Reports stated that his modus operandi was to wait on the overhead bridges in northeastern Singapore to spot his victims.
Chew Xin Ying, the Deputy Public Prosecutor told the court that Aldrin thought if he molests the schoolgirls on their way to school, then they would not have time to tell their parents about the incident.
DPP Ying also said that the accused may have used masking tapes on his fingertips to avoid leaving any DNA evidence on the victim when he grabbed them. To avoid the CCTV cameras or POLCAMs, he parked his vehicle in back alleys.
He targeted primary or secondary school girls, instead of spotting older victims, as he thought that younger victims will be more secretive about such incidents.
However, Aldrin targeted his first victim, a 10-year-old-girl on July 14. When he met the girl on the overhead bridge along Punggol Road, he asked her which school she was from. After few moments, he touched the breast of the minor inappropriately.
He used to tell his victims that their school uniforms were dirty and then he grabs their chest.
All the victims had informed their parents as well as the teachers about the molestation but they did not confront Aldrin by lodging the police report.
But the police launched an operation on July 21, 2017 to catch Aldrin at an overhead bridge along Anchorvale Road. When they spotted the accused, they started questioning and he accepted his crime. The DPP said in 2016 Aldrin exposed himself in front of an 11-year-old girl, who was walking along with her younger sister across the overbridge in Compassvale.
A psychiatric report was presented during the court hearing, which showed that the accused has sexually offensive behaviour, which he developed since 2015 after watching an obscene video.
DPP Ying also mentioned about a psychiatrist from Institute of Mental Health, who found that the accused has frotteuristic disorder and exhibitionistic disorder. Those with frotteuristic disorder usually experience intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviour involving touching and rubbing against a nonconsenting person.
On the other hand, the exhibitionistic disorder is a condition marked by the urge, fantasy, or behaviour of exposing one's genitals to non-consenting people, particularly strangers.
However, the prosecution told the court that these psychiatric issues did not cause him any deprivation of self-control and he knew what he was doing. Aldrin accepted that he molested those minors between July 5 and July 14 last year.
He pleaded guilty to seven out of 15 charges that include six charges of using criminal force to outrage the modesty of minors and one for exposing himself in front of another person.
Under section 354 Penal Code, if a person is found guilty of using criminal force on any person, intending to outrage or knowing it to be likely that he will thereby outrage the modesty of that person, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend up to two years, or with fine, or with caning, or with any combination of all these.
