Ex-teacher jailed 8 years for sex with 14-year-old student

A former secondary school teacher was jailed for eight years on Tuesday by a district court for having sex with a student.

Now 41 years old and unemployed, the man was allowed to start serving sentence on Jan 25 so he can spend Lunar New Year with his wife and two daughters, aged two and four years old.

District Judge Jasvender Kaur increased his bail from $5,000 to $30,000 and ordered that he surrenders his passport to the police.

The judge said that the teacher had abused his position in the school and had 'destroyed the fundamental feeling of safety and protection that teachers entrusted with the care and education of students must provide'.


The court also noted that he committed some of the offences in the co-curricular activities room in the school itself, where he had a latch installed on the inside of the door to ensure his misdeeds would not be uncovered.

Other aggravating factors the judge mentioned in her grounds of decision was the 23-year age difference and that the offender had sex with a girl for a protracted period of 1 1/2 years since late 2007, when she was below 16 and still a virgin.

Said Judge Kaur: 'He is married and a father. He was also having a sexual relationship with a former student at the same time... In my judgement, he clearly took advantage of the girl's immaturity and vulnerability to satisfy... his own sexual satisfaction.'

The man, who cannot be named to prevent the identification of the student, pleaded guilty in December 2011.

The case prompted Mr Lim Biow Chuan, Member of Parliament for Mountbatten, to ask in Parliament this month how the Ministry of Education intends to ensure that student-teacher relationships are kept strictly professional, especially with more teachers giving out their mobile-phone numbers and adding their students on social-networking sites.

In reply, Minister of State for Education Lawrence Wong said that proper systems and processes are in place to guide teachers on appropriate behaviour when interacting with students. He also said that teachers here are sufficiently briefed on the expected standard of conduct and the need to maintain proper relations with students.

Source: ST Online