Yahoo Finance Tuition teacher met underaged boys online for sexual activity
SINGAPORE — A freelance tuition teacher who taught Mandarin to primary and secondary school students would seek out teen boys though online platforms for sexual activities.
Chock Soon Seng, 43, pleaded guilty on Monday (15 March) to two counts each of sexually penetrating a minor under 14, and sexually penetrating a minor under 16. Another 14 charges of a sexual nature, including exploiting children, will be taken into consideration for his sentencing.
Both the victims, boys aged 13 and 15 at the time of the offences, cannot be named due to a court gag order.
Considering Chock’s past convictions for sexual offences – also with children in 2010 and 2014 – District Judge John Ng called for reports to assess his suitability for Corrective Training and Preventive Detention. These are sentencing options usually given to repeat offenders and do not have a one-third remission for good behaviour.
Chock is a freelance tuition teacher who taught Mandarin to students from Primary 5 to Secondary 4. In 2016, Chock, who is homosexual, began using social networking applications such as Grindr and Locanto, to meet other gay individuals for sexual activity.
Asked victim to delete conversation
In April 2018, he met a 13-year-old victim through such an app. Chock knew the victim’s age. The two later agreed to meet for certain sexual activities and did so on 15 April 2018. They met at the void deck of Chock’s home and the older man brought the boy to a landing at the nearest multi-storey carpark.
There, they engaged in oral sex and masturbation before parting ways. After the first meetup, Chock told the victim, who is now 16, to delete their chat. He then persuaded the victim to meet again and they agreed to meet at Punggol Community Club on a weekday, after the boy finished school.
Two days later, the two engaged in more sexual acts in a toilet at the community club. However, when Chock asked the victim for his school’s Primary 6 Higher Chinese examination papers, the boy felt annoyed by the requests and decided to block Chock after their second meetup.
The boy’s mother found her son’s conversation with Chock in his phone in June 2019 and made a police report.
In 2018, another boy, 15, posted on Locanto stating that he was interested in looking for women. However, Chock responded and persuaded the boy to engage in sexual activity with him. He told the boy, now 18, that it was normal for straight men to perform sex acts on one another and coaxed him into experimenting with him, even though the boy was heterosexual.
“The accused also told the second victim that it was very difficult to find women and offered to pay the second victim to perform sexual acts,” said the prosecution.
At Chock’s insistence, the boy agreed to meet up. They met on 23 April 2018 at the victim’s home, where they engaged in sexual activity. After the exchange, Chock paid the victim less than what they agreed upon, after claiming that he had yet to receive his salary.
Chock kept pestering the boy to meet up again for more sexual activity, saying that the “feeling would change” and promised to pay more cash. The boy relented and met him on 11 May 2018 at his home. During this encounter, Chock persuaded the boy to watch heterosexual pornography to stimulate himself and the boy complied.
Again, Chock paid the boy less than what he promised and left. After this encounter, the boy blocked Chock’s attempts to contact him.
After Chock was arrested, he was sent for psychiatric assessment and was found not to be suffering from any mental illness.
Chock will return to court on 9 April for sentencing matters.
For sexually penetrating a minor under 14, he faces a jail term of up to 20 years, and a fine or caning. For sexually penetrating a minor under 16, he faces a jail term of up to 10 years, or fine, or both.
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