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SINGAPORE: A high school teacher who saw a man kissing a 12-year-old boy at a McDonald’s store found the behavior to be inappropriate and continued to monitor them.
Ms. Renuga Konasegaran told a court on Thursday (August 27) what she saw, in a trial against the 35-year-old man, who was then a primary school teacher.
Ms. Renuga then took a photo of the couple and reported the incident to the boy’s school.
The defendant, the victim and the school cannot be identified due to gag orders protecting the identity of the boy, who is now 16 years old.
The defendant is on trial for two counts of sexual abuse and a third count of attempted sexual abuse. He is accused of using criminal force on the victim by striking his private parts over his shorts on June 15, 2017, before allegedly inserting his hands into the boy’s shorts and sexually abusing him.
He is accused of trying to abuse the boy again early the next day. He also faces two charges that have been dropped or set aside for trial: showing the child pornography and willfully harming him.
On Thursday, Ms. Renuga told the court that she had gone to a McDonald’s in the Woodlands Civic Center on June 2, 2017 to buy food for her sister when she saw the defendant and the victim.
WITNESS APPROACHED THE CHILD
He saw the man holding the boy’s hand, and at first he did not think it was “abnormal”, but then he saw the man kiss the boy on the cheek, neck and near the ears.
“I felt very uncomfortable with this gesture, because I thought it was inappropriate for an older man to be kissing a younger boy in this way,” she said.
She said she also wondered how they were related, as they appeared to be of different races and the boy “seemed fine” with what was happening.
Ms. Renuga said that she then saw the man move his hand to hold the boy by the hip before sliding his hand down to his buttocks.
She said the man then placed his palm near the boy’s crotch, however, she couldn’t see very clearly from where she was standing.
He later talked to the boy, pretending he reminded him of a neighbor’s son, and asked him what school he was from.
When she asked him who the man was, he replied that it was his father, which later turned out to be false.
The defendant intervened and left with the child. Ms. Renuga followed them with a friend, but lost sight of them.
Sensing that something was wrong, Ms. Renuga contacted a friend who worked at the boy’s school and told him what had happened. She also showed her two photos she had taken of the boy with the defendant.
Later, the school requested a formal report on the matter and Ms. Renuga agreed.
When asked by the prosecutor how she could remember this incident even though it happened three years ago, Ms. Renuga said that the incident was close to her heart, as she had told her family about what happened once she got home. .
“After two weeks, I got a call to go give my statement and (found out) that something bigger was coming up after my hunch,” he said.
NEVER HAPPENED: DEFENSE
The man’s attorney, Kalaithasan Karuppaya of Regent Law, asked Ms. Renuga why she had taken a photo of the couple.
She said they were holding hands with fingers intertwined and felt “this could lead to something” so she took a photo to help identify the boy if he needed help.
Mr. Kalaithasan suggested that a grown man could adopt a child of a different race and hold his hands, and Ms. Renuga agreed, but insisted that she felt something was wrong.
“There was no reason for me to take a picture,” he said. “I was watching them and I didn’t feel good, so I took that picture.”
He also said that he felt the cheek and neck are “quite intimate areas”, so he felt that it was not a father kissing a son.
Mr. Kalaithasan told him that his client did not kiss the boy on the neck, ears or cheek.
“I don’t agree. This happened,” Ms. Renuga said.
The trial will continue at a later date, with six more witnesses left for the prosecution. The defense intends to call only the accused to the stand.
The Ministry of Education previously said that the defendant has been suspended from service since July 2017 and no longer teaches in any schools.
If found guilty of violating the child’s modesty, the man can be imprisoned for up to five years, fined, flogged, or given any combination of these penalties.
