Trainee teacher convicted of sexual offences
Trainee teacher convicted of sexual offences
By Leong Wee Keat | Posted: 28 December 2010 1855 hrs
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SINGAPORE: Another member of the teaching profession has been convicted of sexual offences.
Aaron Kok Chun Cheong, 23, who on Tuesday pleaded guilty to two counts of sex with two underage girls, will be sacked as a trainee teacher, his lawyer, Amolat Singh, told a District Court.
Kok committed the offences between September 2007 and April 2008 when he was a full-time national serviceman.
Kok met the first girl through an Internet chat-line in late 2006.
A year later, he invited the girl, 13, to his flat and the pair then became intimate with each other. They then had sex and did not contact each other after that.
The girl was then warded at National University Hospital on July 15, 2008 after she complained of stomach pain and vomiting. She was pregnant.
She told the police she had had sex with several men.
She had an abortion on July 31, 2008, and tests revealed that Kok was not the biological father of the foetus.
A month earlier, another girl, 15, reported to the police that she had consensual sex with Kok on three occasions between April 20 and May 31 2008.
The first offence was committed in a handicapped persons toilet at West Mall shopping centre.
Pleading for leniency, Kok said he was a first-time offender and did not set out to target his victims.
Mr Amolat said: "They initiated and actively sought to have sexual relations with him."
Kok was jailed 15 months for carnal connection. He could have been jailed up to 10 years and fined.
Mr Amolat added that for breaching his contract with the National Institute of Education, Kok would also need to pay about S$60,000 as liquidated damages.
Last week, former MOE scholar, Jonathan Wong, was expelled from the University of York in the United Kingdom after pleading guilty to 17 charges of possessing child pornography videos.
The York Crown Court sentenced Wong to a six-month imprisonment sentence suspended for two years - which means he will not be jailed if he does not break the law during that period.
The court also ordered Wong to be placed under eight months' supervision and to be listed on the sex offender registry for seven years. He is disqualified from working with children.
-CNA/ac