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A MALAYSIAN teacher accused of raping an 11-year-old Singaporean girl who was studying in his school has pleaded not guilty in a Sabah court.
Adrian Simon, 31, was charged on Monday with three counts of rape and two counts of sodomy.
He has claimed trial and his case will be mentioned again today.
The prosecution will call 15 witnesses to testify against him.
Speaking to The Straits Times, the girl's lawyer P.J. Perira said the rapes took place this year on Feb 10, Feb 20 and March 26 in the storeroom of the school's science lab.
The girl was then Simon's student in a private Catholic school in Sabah.
Besides raping the girl, he is alleged to have forced her to perform oral sex on him and sodomised her.
The girl's mother went to the Malaysian police on April 7 after hearing from her daughter and the school's headmistress about the alleged rapes.
The Straits Times understands that some of the teachers in the school had become suspicious of Simon's behaviour and talked to the headmistress.
It was then that the rapes came to light.
It is unclear whether there were other victims involved, but the teacher has since been dismissed.
The girl has a brother studying in the same school but according to Mr Perira, both children were withdrawn from school when the headmistress could not guarantee their parents that they would be safe.
The Straits Times understands that the girl's parents, in their 30s, were expatriates who had been working in a hotel in Sabah for close to three years.
Earlier, the Malaysian media had reported that the girl's mother had criticised the slow pace of police investigation.
The family has since left Sabah for Singapore.
Simon is out on RM8,000 (S$3,500) bail. If convicted of rape, he could be jailed for up to 30 years and caned.
