SINGAPORE — Even though they were no longer in a relationship, a man continued to obsess over his ex-girlfriend for more than four years by illegally accessing her social media accounts to monitor her activities.

The woman finally realised her Facebook and Instagram accounts had been compromised when she discovered conversations with someone called Jedrek, with whom she had never chatted before.

She filed a police report on Nov 5, 2017.

On Tuesday (May 14), the 22-year-old full-time national serviceman (NSF) — who cannot be named due to a court order to protect the 22-year-old victim’s identity — was sentenced to 21 months’ probation.

He pleaded guilty last month to eight charges of illegal access under the Computer Misuse & Cybersecurity Act, and a single charge of causing harassment under the Protection from Harassment Act.  A total of 87 other charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.

The court heard that the couple were in a relationship in 2013, but it was not mentioned when they broke up.

The man saved the passwords to her social media accounts on his laptop and began accessing her Facebook account from that year.

He wanted to find out who the victim had been in contact with and what she was doing, Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Thiagesh Sukumaran said.

The man reportedly accessed the victim’s Facebook account on 115 occasions between June 1 and Nov 6, 2017.

He logged into her Instagram account 14 times from Oct 16 to Nov 6 that year.

DRAWN TO ANOTHER WOMAN

In November 2017, the man became interested in another woman, who was identified in court documents only as Nicol.

Nicol rebuffed his advances as she was already in a relationship with someone called Jedrek. The man then sought to test Jedrek’s fidelity towards Nicol.

Using his ex-girlfriend’s social media accounts, he began chatting with Jedrek, eventually suggesting that they have sex.

Jedrek agreed and that was when the man ended the conversation.

At around the same time, the victim logged onto her social media accounts and discovered the conversation.

DPP Thiagesh said that she felt harassed and realised that her ex-boyfriend had been using the account and pretending to be her.

Arguing for a lighter sentence, defence lawyer Josephus Tan said that it was his client’s first relationship and when it ended abruptly, it left him at a “complete loss”.

The accused realised that his laptop’s browser had automatically saved his ex-girlfriend’s login credentials and began accessing her accounts to find out what she was doing.

He was “relatively young and unmeasured in his actions” and “lacked the emotional maturity and the relationship experience to handle a bitter break-up”, added Mr Tan.

“He is thus not a hardened criminal who fails to see the error in his ways.”

As part of the probation, the man’s parents must post a S$5,000 bond. He must remain indoors from 10pm to 6am and perform 180 hours of community service.

For each count of illegally accessing any programme or data held in any computer, the man could have been jailed up to two years and fined up to S$5,000 in the first instance.

For each count of causing harassment, alarm or distress to the victim, he could have been jailed up to a year and fined up to S$5,000.