SINGAPORE: An 18-year-old school dropout has been sentenced to 10 years’ jail and 12 strokes of the cane for sexually assaulting and raping four teenage girls over three years.
Anthony Lim Yao Ming pleaded guilty on Monday (Mar 12) to two charges, which involve girls - a 13-year-old and a 14-year-old - with very low to borderline intelligence. Another eight charges were taken into consideration in sentencing.
He was only 14 when he committed his first offence.
“(He) may have been young when he sexually violated four different girls, but the (manner) in which he perpetrated these offences belie his tender age,” Deputy Public Prosecutor Kavita Uthrapathy said.
“(Lim’s) modus operandi involved exploiting the gullibility and loneliness of adolescent girls and convincing them that they shared a genuine romantic relationship (with him), only to use them for his own sexual gratification at the very first meeting”, she told the High Court.
Lim befriended a 13-year-old girl on Facebook in January 2016. They started chatting and six days later, Lim asked her to be his girlfriend. She agreed.
AdvertisementAdvertisementThey met up on Jan 14, when Lim took her to his flat to have sex with her. He dumped her shortly after, only to contact her three days later wanting to get back together.
The pair met again on Jan 25 and had sex at Lim’s flat, after which the girl noticed she was bleeding.
While doing the laundry the next morning, the girl’s mother noticed blood on her daughter’s panties and questioned the girl, who eventually admitted she had had sex with Lim.
They made a police report on Feb 1.
While he was being investigated for having sex with a minor under 14, Lim raped another victim.
This girl was 14 years old when they met on Facebook in 2015. They lost touch but reconnected in May 2016 when Lim asked her to be his girlfriend. She agreed.
On Jun 22, Lim sent the girl a series of text messages. Pretending to be his mother, he asked the girl why she had not met Lim yet, when they were supposed to be a couple.
Feeling guilty, the girl made plans to meet Lim on Jun 29. He picked her up from school and while in a taxi, she asked Lim where they were going. He replied that it was a “surprise”.
He took the girl to his flat, where he raped her. She begged and pleaded with Lim to stop, but he only shouted at her and threatened to punch and slap her if she resisted.
He let her go when she said her mother expected her home by 5.30pm. Lim booked her a taxi, and asked her for S$5.
The Grab taxi driver noticed that the girl was in tears, and heard her make a phone call to her teacher to tell her what had happened. The teacher called the girl’s mother, and a police report was made the same day.
In sentencing, Justice Kannan Ramesh said he was “deeply perturbed by the manner and mode of (Lim’s) offence(s)”.
The judge added that Lim's actions were clearly “all about exploitation”, noting several aggravating factors in the case and that the teenage girls were vulnerable because they were so young and of very low to borderline intelligence.
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