SINGAPORE — Two years after breaking up with his girlfriend, a 23-year-old man was still keen on patching things up with her — and did so by threatening to leak her nude photos and sex videos, and eventually locking her up in his room and forcing himself on her.

For molesting and harassing his ex-girlfriend, the man, who cannot be named due to a gag order to protect the victim’s identity, was sentenced to 11 months in jail and three strokes of the cane on Thursday (Aug 8).

The court heard that he reached out to the victim out of the blue on Oct 23, 2018 and continued texting her the next day.

In the messages, he repeatedly alluded to wanting to have sex with her, even though she rejected him more than five times in eight minutes.

Not backing down, he texted the victim that night asking her to send him a video of her breasts. 

She refused, and he threatened to leak her nude photos, or photos of them being intimate. He also asked her to send him a video of herself showering.

Then he kept texting: “I guess u want to test me?” 

“I upload in 5mins time.”

“Legit if you still not replying." 

As she kept silent, he sent her a “preview” of the material he planned to leak, including a photo of her performing oral sex on him. 

Five minutes later, as she still had not replied, he texted her again, saying that he was “done” uploading.

And five minutes after that: “Nvm I take down first.”

He then told her to check her Instagram account.

There, she found that she had received a follow request from an account which had been set up for the purported aim of displaying compromising photos and videos of her.

The victim lodged a police report at Hougang Neighbourhood Police Centre that day.

However, she went to her ex-boyfriend’s house two days later, in the hope of getting him to delete the compromising images and videos he had of her. 

She was accompanied by her boyfriend and two female friends, whom she asked to wait outside the accused’s house. 

Upon entering his house, the accused took her to his bedroom and locked the door. As she sat on his chair, he sat on her lap facing her and attempted to kiss her on her lips. 

Despite her resistance, he continued his advances and slid his hands under her shirt. She struggled even more and eventually managed to get him off her lap.

She then took the opportunity to text her boyfriend: “SOS”.

Upon receiving the message, her boyfriend entered the house and “broke down the door to the accused’s room”, said Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Jean Goh.

The police later arrived to arrest the accused. They seized his phone and thumbdrive, from which six videos and one photo of the victim were retrieved. 

‘REKINDLING AN OLD FLAME’

The accused’s lawyer, Mr TM Sinnadurai of Regent Law, sought probation instead of a jail sentence for his client, arguing that he had merely wanted to “rekindle an old flame”. 

He had touched her the way he used to, but the only difference was that there was no consent this time around, he said.

But DPP Goh – in seeking a one-year jail term with caning as a punishment – called Mr Sinnadurai’s defence a “big mischaracterisation” of what truly materialised. 

A normal person would not lock their ex-partners in their rooms or send them nude pictures to threaten them if they have a desire to restore the relationship, she said.

District Judge Marvin Bay agreed with the prosecutor, referring to the man’s conduct as “predatory”, “truly egregious” and “exploitative”.

“It beggars belief that (he) harboured any hope that his repeated threats and violent overtures would have been likely to procure such a result,” he added.

Furthermore, he noted that it was “fortuitous” that the convict’s advances were cut short as the victim had the “situational awareness” to type an SOS message to her boyfriend.

Judge Bay also took into consideration the convict’s young age. 

Mr Sinnadurai had stated that his client is currently serving National Service and has the intention to sign on as a regular with the Singapore Armed Forces. 

The man began his sentence on Thursday.