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A NANYANG Polytechnic student yesterday became the 12th male to be brought to court for having sex with an underage girl.
In 2008, the girl, then 13, told police of her sexual encounters with more than a dozen men.
Community Court Judge Soh Tze Bian called for a probation report for Jesper Lim Jun Hao, 21, and scheduled the next hearing for April 24.
Lim was arrested after the girl, who was hospitalised in the National University Hospital for stomach pain and vomiting in July that year, was found to be pregnant.
She admitted to a police officer that she had had sex with several men after she turned 12.
Her pregnancy was terminated but laboratory analyses so far indicate that none of the 12 men brought to court was the father of the aborted foetus.
Like Lim, one of them is awaiting a probation report. Five have been jailed for between three and 11 months, two fined and three other youths put on probation.
They got to know her through social networking websites such as Friendster and Alamak Chat.
Though Lim and the girl exchanged messages as early as in June 2006, they started chatting regularly only a year later.
That was when she told him she was 12. He told her he was 16.
After they finally met, she took him to her flat where they had sex. The court heard they had sex on another occasion soon after that.
Lim, who was in court with his taxi driver father and housewife mother, appeared nervous and barely looked up during the proceedings.
He pleaded guilty to one charge of carnal connection with a girl below 16 and agreed to have the second offence taken into consideration by the judge in the sentencing.
Asking the court to exercise leniency, defence counsel Mervyn Tan said Lim had been awarded a scholarship to study engineering at the polytechnic and was one of its top students.
"He is a young man with a bright future ahead of him and he has learnt a very harsh lesson," the lawyer added.
The maximum punishment is a five-year jail term and a $10,000 fine.
