A man, Lau Seng Kee, sexually assaulted a six-year-old girl in a HDB back in 2014.
In 2022, police solved the cold case when a parent spotted Lau attempting to prey on his nine-year-old.
A vigilant estate cleaner told police that he previously saw the accused committing sexual acts in front of children.
Police arrested Lau and the judge sentenced him to 10.5 years’ jail.
Channel NewsAsia (CNA) reported that the first known incident took place at noon on 21 Feb 2014.
At the time, the first reported victim, a six-year-old girl, had been playing hide-and-seek at the HDB void deck with her eight-year-old sister and domestic helper.
During the game, the victim spotted Lau loitering and staring at her from a distance. The victim was dressed in her primary school physical education (PE) uniform that day.
Image for illustration purposes only.
Lau then lured the victim up a flight of stairs and exposed his private parts to her. He then told her to perform a sexual act.
In the process, he ejaculated into her mouth, according to 8world News. She spat out his semen, some of which landed on her school uniform.
Lau then left the scene while the victim rejoined her sister and left for school on a school bus. She later told her father about the sexual assault during dinner that day. After which, he immediately filed a police report.
Police collected DNA samples from the semen on the girl’s shirt and stored it in a database. The victim suffered “recurring thoughts” about the assault and had to see a child psychiatrist.
The police investigated the case for six years but failed to find any leads. The case went cold in 2020.
Image for illustration purposes only.
In May 2022, the police received a call from a concerned parent. He reported a man, Lau, staring at his nine-year-old daughter and offering to buy her ice cream at a playground.
Police officers arrived and interviewed the now 60-year-old Lau, whom the parent had identified.
During the interview, an estate cleaner approached the police and alleged that he saw Lau masturbating in front of a crying young girl, some two or three weeks ago.
The cleaner gave chase, but Lau escaped. As such, the vigilant estate cleaner kept an eye out for Lau ever since.
Following this, the officers took a DNA sample from Lau and found that it matched the sample from the 2014 cold case.
Lau confessed to the police that he had, on at least six occasions, sought out “round-faced” primary school girls in uniform. He also admitted to previously masturbating in front of them.
In court, Lau pleaded guilty to one charge of aggravated sexual assault, for the 2014 case with the six-year-old.
He also faced a charge of sexual exploitation for the same six-year-old victim, as well as for an obscene act committed in public, for the young girl in 2022.
The prosecutors highlighted Lau as “predatory”, as he lay in wait and lured his victim to an isolated area. They noted the victim’s young age and thus vulnerability.
They further pointed out that Lau’s 2022 offence showed his sexual desire for young girls remained unshaken despite eight years passing.
Additionally, the prosecutors said that the broad daylight sexual assaults caused “significant unease” to parents.
As such, they sought nine-and-a-half to 11.5 years’ jail. The extra six months in the requested sentence was in lieu of the mandatory 12 strokes of the cane. As Lau is above 50 years old, he cannot be caned.
The defence highlighted that Lau pleaded guilty and claimed he felt “deeply apologetic”. Thus, they asked the judge for a lighter sentence.
On Monday (2 Oct), Justice Valerie Thean sentenced him to 10.5 years in jail, with the added six months in lieu of the caning.
Last month, a Singapore man received 40 years’ jail for sexually abusing six boys, including his cousin’s sons.
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Featured image by MS News.
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