> Grassroots leader of Yio Chu Kang Community Club cleared of molesting 9yo boy

A MAN was cleared of two charges of molesting a nine-year-old boy in a public toilet at Woodlands on Thursday after a trial.

Mr Low Bak Leng, 57, then a schoolbus driver, was acquitted of stroking the boy’s private parts twice at the second floor toilet of Woodlands Mart at Block 768 Woodlands Avenue 6 on Jan 4 last year.

In acquitting him after a six-day trial, District Judge Jeffrey Sim said he did not think it was safe to accept the child’s evidence at face value, in the absence of independent corroborative evidence.

The boy, whose evidence was given behind closed doors, had gone to Woodlands Mart with his mother for her medical appointment.

The mother raised an alarm that her son was molested after he told her that ‘uncle” had taught him how to urinate.

Judge Sim felt that Mr Low’s conduct after his confrontation with the mother did not necessarily point to guilt.

‘If it was true that he was falsely accused by the mother, then it is understandable why he would want to avoid her and stay as far away from her as possible,” he said.

The central issue, he said, was whether he found the child’s evidence to be unusually convincing. He concluded that he was unable to make such a finding having weighed the evidence and circumstances of the case.

Also, the mother’s evidence that the child had waved and said goodbye to the accused and thanked him did not sit very well with the child’s evidence that he had just been molested twice in the toilet.

Mr Low, represented by Mr N. Kanagavijayan, was relieved and happy that his name had been cleared.

The grassroots leader of Yio Chu Kang Community Club for 25 years said the case had caused a lot of trauma for his family, who had been pillar of support over the last 11/2 years.

His wife, Madam Toh Cheng Cheng, 52, a dessert shop assistant, said he was a very good husband and never took a day off work, slogging 16 hours a day to deliver newspapers part-time and ferry young children to and from school and childcare centres.

> 65yo man claims trial to incest with 23yo niece

BUTTERWORTH: A 65-year- old man yesterday claimed trial to committing incest with his 23-year-old niece.

The jobless man was accused of committing the offence at a house in Merbau Kudong here about 7.30pm on May 1.

Sessions Court judge Ainul Shahrin Mohamad denied bail, and the accused, who was unrepresented, said he was not satisfied with the decision but did not state why.

Ainul fixed Sept 3 for mention.

The man was later taken to Penang Prison pending mention of the case.
Deputy public prosecutor Fauzaiah Daud prosecuted.

> Girl skips class for months to have sex in goat pen

A FORM Three student threw away at least 10 warning letters from her school so that she could continue having sex with her boyfriend in a secluded goat pen in Jenderam Hulu.

She dumped the letters over the past three months to prevent her parents from knowing that she had played truant to go on her jaunts with the 19-year-old youth, Kosmo! reported.

Apparently, the 15-year-old girl began sleeping with the youth in March and became addicted to sex.

However, her mother became suspicious after noticing “physical changes” in her daughter.

She was shocked when the girl admitted that she had not been going to school for three months and had instead been with the youth.

The girl’s family then went in search of the youth who had disappeared. Police are now looking for him.

> Rape clip found in boy’s phone

KOTA KINABALU: A teacher conducting a spot check on a student’s cellphone found an explicit video clip of a 13-year-old girl being molested and raped by boys known to her.

Five students have since been arrested following a police report by the girl’s father two days ago after the teacher informed him of the recording.

One of the boys allegedly captured the crime on his handphone which showed a boy raping the girl and the others molesting her, Kota Marudu district police chief Deputy Supt Mohd Isa Yusof said yesterday.

“The clip showed the students kissing, hugging and groping the girl,” he said, adding that the video recording was believed to have been made on May 20 at a secluded kampung house in Sabah’s northern Kota Marudu district.

Those arrested included a Form Four student who is alleged to have raped the girl. The others were his Form Five schoolmates. They are aged between 17 and 19.

“One of the suspects was picked up from school while the rest were in their houses,” he said, adding that investigations were being carried out for rape and molest.

Asked why the girl had not reported the incident immediately, he said based on investigations, the girl and the boys apparently knew each other.

“It was only when the teacher found the video clip on the handphone and told her father that the case was reported to us,” he said, adding that it had been classified as statutory rape.

> Teen praised for naked photos of his mum GPGT

A teenage boy who tried to sell naked photos of his mother online was praised by her and given more pictures to sell.

Michael, an 18-year-old from New Zealand, was ordered to clear out the garage by his mother Jennifer, 44.

But while sulking and cleaning he came across some “artistic” photos of his mother. But instead of recoiling and burning them he posted them on online trading site TradeMe with the title, “5 naked photos of my mum”.

If his actions weren’t strange enough when Jennifer found out she didn’t castigate him or scold him, she gave him some more pics to sell.

“He was quite naughty … I thought ‘you cheeky little git’, but at least he’d been a bit creative about it,” said Jennifer.

But the money-making scheme was foiled when TradeMe pulled the auction, much to the chagrin of Jennifer.

“I wanted 50 per cent of the sale, but more than that I miss the nice comments.“

> Acquitted man guilty of rape

A 47-YEAR-OLD man, who was initially cleared of raping a mentally disabled teenager, was on Wednesday convicted of the offence after the Court of Appeal overturned the lower court’s decision.

Last August, the High Court had acquitted Gansean Rengasamy of rape, saying there was not enough evidence to show that he had sex with the 15-year-old against her will.

On Wednesday, the three-judge court, comprising Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong and Judges of Appeal Andrew Phang and V.K. Rajah, disagreed. Delivering the decision, Justice Rajah said the facts of the case – contrary to the trial judge’s view – all pointed compellingly to the conclusion that the teenager had not consented to having sex.

The girl has an intelligence quotient (IQ) of 44 and is considered moderately mentally retarded. Normal IQs are between 90 and 110. She testified during the trial last year that Gansean had accosted her at her block of flats in the Jurong area as she was walking home.

She said he had grabbed her arm, pulled her to a nearby staircase and raped her. Three passers-by saw the girl struggling while being held by Gansean and detained him until the police came.

However, Gansean, a former airport worker, denied having sex with the girl. He claimed he was sniffing glue at the block when the teenager came up to pester him for $10.

He claimed he ran away when the passers-by chased him because he thought they were police officers trying to catch him for glue-sniffing.

High Court judge Choo Han Teck found that sexual intercourse had taken place between the pair. But he found that the girl’s testimony was ‘weak and inconclusive’, and that there was insufficient evidence to prove that the sex was non-consensual.

Gansean was instead convicted on a lesser charge of having sex with a girl below the age of 16. He was sentenced to four years’ jail. Prosecutors appealed, arguing that the girl did not consent to sex. Gansean also appealed.

On Wednesday, his appeal was thrown out. The appeal judges agreed with the prosecution that the teenager had been sexually assaulted. Justice Rajah said the girl was consistent in her description of the assault. Her account was also consistent with that of one of the passers-by, who saw her trying to push Gansean away. Gansean will be sentenced at a later date. He faces up to 20 years’ jail and caning.

> Jailed for group sex wit 14yo minor

Zulaimi Karim, a father of four, had played an instrumental role in morally corrupting the teen. -- ST PHOTO: WONG KWAI CHOW

A TEENAGE girl had sex simultaneously with a man more than 20 years her senior as well as with her uncle. On Wednesday, former cabby Zulaimi Karim, 38, a friend of the uncle, was jailed for two years after pleading guilty to two counts of having group sex with the then 14-year-old in 2006. A third similar charge of having threesome sex at her uncle’s flat was also taken into consideration.

Zulaimi’s 36-year-old accomplice is now serving 14 years behind bars on seven offences of unnatural sex, underage sex with a minor and attempted sex. Twelve other charges were considered. He is appealing against the sentence.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Sharmila Sripathy-Shanaz told the court that investigations showed the girl, now 17, had engaged in sex with Zulaimi and her uncle simultaneously.

On April 26, 2006, the accomplice, who was then in a relationship with the victim, took her to a hotel in Geylang and met Zulaimi. There, the accomplice suggested that the victim have sex with Zulaimi first.

Initially the young girl refused but she relented when her uncle showed his displeasure. The DPP said the trio watched a pornographic movie before the two men took turns having sex with the teen. Afterwards, Zulaimi gave her $30 to top up her phone card. She took the money.

On June 17, the accomplice took the girl to another hotel in Geylang and engaged in threesome sex with Zulaimi. Again, Zulaimi gave her $30.

Only in 2007 were their sexual activities found out. The victim’s brother discovered she was having sex regularly and told their parents. When confronted, she told her father she had been in a relationship with her uncle and had been having sex with other men. On May 27 that year, the father took her to make a police report.

Defence lawyer Ravinderpal Singh said in mitigation that had Zulaimi, a father of four, known about the relationship between the accomplice and the girl, he would not have engaged in the group sex.

Citing numerous aggravating factors in the case, DPP Sharmila said the two adults manipulated and sexually exploited the young girl with no regard for her innocence, vulnerability and immaturity. She said Zulaimi, who is more than twice the victim’s age, had played an instrumental role in morally corrupting her. On each occasion, he even gave her money after sex, effectively encouraging the victim to prostitute herself in exchange for money. She said on all three occasions, the two men pre-planned their sexual trysts.

Zulaimi’s guilty plea, she added, came only after he knew the game was up. ‘The accused has demonstrated that he is an opportunist who was waiting to see if his accomplice would snitch on him,’ she said. She urged the court to impose a sentence higher than the benchmark of 12 months to reflect its intolerance and abhorrence of his reprehensible conduct.

> Aussie serial rapist gets 28 yrs

MELBOURNE – AN AUSTRALIAN serial rapist who dressed his unconscious victims in his collection of women’s underwear and filmed assaults on them was Tuesday jailed for 28 years.

Victorian Supreme Court Chief Justice Marilyn Warren said John Xydias, 45, had degraded women in a spree lasting 15 years which media described as one of the country’s worst sex crimes.

‘Your offending was sustained over a period of 15 years, your conduct was not low-level or less-serious rape,’ Justice Warren said.

‘The worst aspect of your conduct was the degrading and dehumanising of your victims.’ Xydias showed little emotion as the sentence was read out. He pleaded guilty to 25 counts of rape and 61 indecent assaults at the Melbourne house he shares with his parents and at the family holiday home.

The crimes were discovered when Xydias’s girlfriend handed a suspicious DVD to police, who searched his home and found 13 videos of his sex assaults as well as recording equipment and women’s underwear.

Xydias denied doping his victims with date-rape drug Rohypnol and said they had fallen unconscious after drinking and smoking cannabis. The court earlier heard that one of the women had been unconscious for two days.

Xydias will serve a minimum of 20 years before being eligible for parole. — AFP