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HE TOOK along a knife on his first date with a teen he came to know through social networking website Friendster.
Taking precautions, the 15-year-old girl asked two friends to accompany her on the date with then 22-year-old Christopher Neo Yong Heng on Aug 25 last year.
But when he saw the other two girls, he became angry and ordered them to leave. He then became aggressive, shouting at the victim and pulling her to a nearby block of flats where he molested her.
Yesterday, the unemployed man was jailed for four years and six months and given 12 strokes of the cane, after he admitted to outraging the modesty of the girl and slashing a stranger on the wrist and fingers at a void deck near Jalan Bukit Merah on Nov 1 while out on bail.
Assistant Public Prosecutor N.K. Anitha told the court on Monday that when the two girls lost sight of Neo and their friend, one of them called a male schoolmate for help.
At the staircase landing of Block 35, Chai Chee Avenue, the victim cried when he threatened to harm her friends.
He repeatedly tried to hug her but she pulled herself away each time. And when she tried to leave to answer a call from the male schoolmate, Neo blocked her path.
The prosecutor said Neo then pointed a knife at her neck, and threatened to harm her and her friends if she walked away.
“The accused suggested that the victim allow him to ‘touch’ her in order to settle the matter without resorting to a ‘fight’,” she said.
The victim became so terrified when he began banging the wall with his fists that she allowed him to molest her.
She related the incident to her mother the next day and a police report was made.
In the other case, Assistant Public Prosecutor Anitha said Chinese national Lu Fangfang, 23, was surfing the Internet at about 2am at the void deck of Block 9, Jalan Rumah Tinggi, when Neo, wearing a surgical mask and armed with a shaving razor, came from behind and cupped her mouth.
During the struggle, he slashed her on the left wrist and fingers. The victim managed to break free and ran to her unit, screaming for help.
Lawyer Peter Ong said his client was a victim of sexual abuse himself as a boy, and was found to be suffering from anti- social personality disorder.
As Neo was listening to counsel’s mitigation, he broke down in tears.
District Judge Sarjit Singh rejected counsel’s request that the sentences run concurrently, saying that the acts Neo had committed were very serious and that they were separate offences.
The prosecutor pointed out that both offences were committed after Neo’s release from reformative training for outrage of modesty, carnal connection and intimidation to procure sex with a minor.
