SINGAPORE — He ambushed a 27-year-old woman on the street and molested her, but had to stop after she hit him. Then when the police went looking for him, he pretended he was not at home.  

On Tuesday (May 2), Benjamin Tan Jook Min, 38, was sentenced to 27 months’ jail and four strokes of the cane in a district court for his offence.

Investigations showed that on Aug 2 last year, Tan was strolling along Outram Road after dinner when he chanced upon the victim. She cannot be named due to a court order.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Kavita Uthrapathy said: “The accused later told police that he first decided to follow the victim after seeing her at the traffic light junction (along Havelock Road), because he developed a temptation and urge to touch her on her buttocks.”

The freelance events planner crossed the road towards her and started following her. 

At some point, she stopped to use her mobile phone, and he hid behind an advertisement board near a bus stop to avoid detection.

“It was at this point that the accused decided that he was going to molest her and thought to himself that it was ‘now or never’,” said DPP Uthrapathy.  

Tan took out a pair of gloves from his backpack and, after putting them on, ran towards the victim and used a glove-clad hand to cover her mouth. Holding onto her from behind, he yanked her backwards. 

The victim struggled and screamed, and after she fell, Tan straddled her and forcefully touched her right inner thigh. 

The woman continued to struggle and eventually hit him on the face with her bag. He then fled towards Chin Swee Road. 

Left with bruises and scratches, the woman called the police at around 3am.

When the police went knocking on Tan’s door two days later, he tried to evade arrest by switching off all the lights and pretending that there was no one home. 

However, he caved in later and let the police in.

He also told them that he had purposely taken a longer route to return home at Block 51 Chin Swee Road that night, in a bid to evade closed-circuit television cameras. 

He took the lift to the 18th floor and climbed the stairs to his unit two floors up, in order to throw anyone off his tracks.

As for the cap and gloves that he wore that night, he had tossed them into a rubbish bin around Jurong, just before meeting a client the day after the assault. 

Tan was convicted of wrongfully restraining the victim to commit molest. The offence carries a penalty of between two and 10 years’ jail and mandatory caning.