SINGAPORE: A former secondary school teacher was found guilty on Wednesday (Jul 31) of 19 counts of sexual penetration of a minor.

He had sex with a 15-year-old student he was in a romantic relationship with and got her pregnant with a child who is now two years old, the court heard.



The 41-year-old man cannot be named due to a gag order preventing the publication of any information that would reveal the identity of the victim.

The man was the girl's physics teacher in an unidentified secondary school. In December 2013, when she was in Secondary 2, he offered to give her private tuition in physics.

She began taking tuition classes from him along with another student at his house on Saturday mornings, up until she completed her O-Level examinations in November 2015.

In June 2015, the teacher began inviting the girl to his home outside of tuition classes. He confessed a month later that he liked her and said he would give her some time to think about it.



THEY BEGAN DATING, BECAME INTIMATE

The girl later agreed to start a relationship with him. They hid their clandestine relationship, ensuring that the teacher's mother was not at home and that neighbours did not see the girl entering or leaving his home.

They began being physically intimate, starting with hugs and kisses and progressing to sex on Aug 10, 2015.

They continued having sex and engaging in sexual activity after this, with WhatsApp conversations linked to each occasion.

The victim, who is now 19, continued dating the teacher until around September to October 2016, when she broke up with him in her first year of polytechnic studies.

The girl discovered she was 16 weeks' pregnant in November 2016 and lodged a police report the following month, accompanied by her family.

She testified during the trial that she thought she was still a virgin, as the teacher had told her that the activities they engaged in were not considered sex.

On Wednesday, the man was found guilty of having sex with her at his home on 10 occasions between August and September 2015.



The victim, who is still a polytechnic student and lives with her parents and siblings, told the court how the man had portrayed sex to her: "If it never fully penetrated, if you don’t feel a lot of pain, it’s not considered the real, or what you call it, the full sex. And that is why I’ve considered myself a virgin, despite our acts."

MAN CLAIMED THEY DID NOT HAVE SEX BEFORE SHE WAS 16

The man admitted that he had initiated the relationship with his student but denied engaging in any penetrative sexual activity with her before she turned 16.

He claimed that their physical intimacy had been restricted to kissing, touching and rubbing.

He gave three reasons for not having sex with the girl before her 16th birthday: That it was illegal to have sex with a minor, that the victim was unwilling to have premarital sex and he respected her view on this, and that they were both afraid of getting her pregnant.

District Judge Chay Yuen Fatt on Wednesday said he accepted the testimony of the victim, which was consistent and supported by the text messages exchanged with the former teacher.

He will return to court for mitigation and sentencing on Aug 29.

For each count of sexual penetration of a minor, he could be jailed for up to 10 years, fined, or both.