Man Given a Month’s Jail for Having Child Porn Videos in His Phone That Were ‘Automatically Downloaded’

By
Lin Jiawen
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You can get away with some things if you have an excuse.

But for other things, you can’t.

Clearly, possessing child pornography is not one of those things that you can get away with, regardless of how you try and reason your way out

Sri Lankan Given a Month’s Jail For Possession of Child Pornography

Yesterday (7 February), Sri Lanka national Kolambage Dhanushka Chamara Perera plead guilty to one count of possessing 25 videos that depicted child abuse.

He was caught on 6 August 2020, when a foot patrol officer from the Public Transport Security Command on duty at Lavender MRT station caught Kolambage acting in a suspicious manner.

This led to Kolambage’s arrest, and officers confiscated his mobile phone as well.

Upon further investigation, some of the files in Kolambage’s phone were found to contain child pornography.

He was sentenced to a month in jail.

Apart from that, a second charge that included Kolambage’s possession of over 2,000 obscene video clips, was taken into consideration as well.

And if you’re wondering where Kolambage got all these videos from…

WhatsApp.

Yup.

“Singapore Boys Wela Group” Whatsapp Chat

Kolambage was introduced to the “Singapore Boys Wela Group” by a friend, being told that it was a group chat that had “many Sri Lankan people” in it.

The group chat, created in 2019, was initially supposed to allow the Sri Lankan nationals in the group to share news and updates about their hometown.

I mean, there’s nothing to lose in such a harmless, informative group chat, right…?

Well, we all know how well that went.

As to how the group chat came to light, officers noticed a peculiar WhatsApp group chat while conducting a check on Kolambage.

The display picture of the chat was a photo with silhouettes of a man and a woman engaging in what appeared to be a sexual act.

And if you’re wondering if Kolambage is the only one being charged, he isn’t.

The group’s administrator, Hindakumbure Charindu Dilshan Rajapaksha, 29, has his case pending as of now.

At the time when Kolambage’s phone was seized by authorities, the group chat had 256 participants and over 6,000 media files.

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WhatsApp Settings Automatically Downloaded Media; Kolambage “Not Really Interested”

Wait, what?

Even though Kolambage did not exit the group chat, he apparently claimed to the investigators that he was “not really interested” in those video clips being circulated around in the group chats that involved minors.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Tessa Tan also highlighted the fact that in Kolambage’s phone, his WhatsApp settings were set so that any media files he received would be automatically downloaded into his phone gallery, whether or not he had the intention of downloading them.

You do know you can change the media downloading settings with a simple click in WhatsApp’s settings, right…?

The DPP also mentioned how “although he had tried his best to delete ‘underage obscene videos’, he might have at (times) missed out on deleting them, as there were ‘too many of such videos’.”

Well, I guess his fingers weren’t fast enough then.

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Lin Jiawen
Email: [email protected]