With the recent reportings of so many molest and sexual harassment cases, you probably would not be surprised to see that there’s another one that has popped up.
Backstory
A 22-year-old man, Mohammad Fazly Zakaria, previously found himself attracted to a nine-year-old girl when he was on a bus travelling along Bedok North Road and spotted her at a bus stop.
Yes, nine-year-old.
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According to Deputy Public Prosecutor Goh Sue Jean, he felt attracted to her, so he decided to alight at the next bus stop and walk back to the stop where he had seen her.
She was about to board the bus and he followed her up before deciding on a seat opposite her.
Of course, like all predators, he smiled at her first.
He moved to sit beside her and touched her thigh a few times with his fingers. The girl didn’t know what to do and just froze in her seat.
Fazly then exposed himself and masturbated right in front of her, asking her if she wanted to “play with it” and calling his privates “a toy”.
The poor girl tried to ignore his comments by turning away from him, but when she alighted from the bus later, Fazly followed her.
He got into the lift with her at her block and pressed the button for the floor right below hers after she pressed her floor number. He asked her to “help him with something”, to which she obviously refused.
My momma told me to never talk to strangers, and there’s a very good reason for that.
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When the doors opened for his floor, he tried to pull her out of the lift by her hand. She screamed for help and tried to resist him, but when you’re just a nine-year-old fearful for her life fighting a twenty-something-year-old, you’re bound to lose.
She tried to outrun him and run up the stairs to her floor but Fazly simply gripped her hand tightly and held her from behind to prevent her from leaving. He even covered her mouth.
He then carried her to the staircase landing between two floors. All this while, the girl is resisting by holding onto the handrails.
She started to burst into tears and only then did Fazly apologise to her and release her from his grip. She immediately ran home by the stairs and told her grandmother what happened while he ran away.
Her grandmother reported this incident to the police, and Fazly was investigated and released on court bail.
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While Out On Bail, He Dated Teen And Sexually Assaulted Her
After a few months following that incident, he met a 13-year-old girl online and started dating her.
How that even happened, I don’t know. But hey, there’s a reason why we’re always warned about the dangers of meeting people online, especially when we were much younger, right?
According to CNA, they sent each other sexually explicit photos and videos, and hugged and kissed each other.
On 31 December 2018, they went to watch the movie Aquaman at Tampines Mall.
During the movie, they hugged and kissed, and Fazly molested and sexually assaulted her.
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After the movie, they continued to send each other provocative messages and he even made it a point that the girl should “just say no” if a police officer were to question her.
Now, if your supposed boyfriend has to tell you things like that, warning bells should already be ringing in your head.
He apparently told her, “That’s the way it works. If you don’t confess to anything, they don’t have proof.”
The girl’s mother checked her bag the next day when she realised that something felt wrong.
And she was right. She found a packet of cigarettes and told the girl’s stepfather, who then looked through her phone and text messages.
The two of them insisted that Fazly meet them and they called the police when he arrived.
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The Court Hearing
During the court hearing yesterday (4 October 2019), District Judge Marvin Bay said that Fazly’s acts were of a diverse range of sexual offending against two victims.
“You are also a profoundly corrupting influence, who had sought out a teenager using social media and mobile applications to connect with her,” said the judge.
Fazly re-offended when he was on bail, digitally harassing a 13-year-old victim while on a movie date “to a point that she had been concerned that she had somehow lost her virginity.”
“You had then made disparaging remarks about her private parts, and far more significantly; then sought to coach her to lie to police to cover your tracks,” said the judge.
He also added that Fazly’s actions would most likely have caused his “young and impressionable victims” to suffer from emotional and psychological harm, as well as “tremendous angst and anxiety to their parents and carers”.
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Rehabilitation is often used for young offenders, however, punishment will be given if the crime is very serious, the offender is highly culpable, the harm caused is severe and the offender is recalcitrant.
Especially if you don’t have good GPA.
The judge also mentioned that the fact that all factors were present in Fazly’s case, and the fact that he committed another offence while on bail showed his utter disregard for the law.
The judge said that he ruled out probation or other alternative rehabilitative sentencing regime because he did not see them as appropriate for his case.
“While I am mindful of your relative youth, it is nevertheless essential to send a clear and unequivocal signal that sex offenders who prey on the young, whatever their age, must and will sternly be dealt with in our courts,” he said.
For his crimes, Fazly was sentenced to two years and one month in jail.
For sexually penetrating a minor under 14, he could have been jailed for up to 20 years and fined or caned.
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