{"id":50376,"date":"2026-05-07T01:12:40","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T17:12:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=50376"},"modified":"2026-05-07T01:12:40","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T17:12:40","slug":"3-years-jail-for-man-who-molested-girl-while-working-as-a-pastor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=50376","title":{"rendered":"3 years\u2019 jail for man who molested girl while working as a pastor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">SINGAPORE \u2013 A man <!-- -->who was a pastor w<!-- -->hen he repeatedly molested a girl with severe specific language impairment was sentenced to three years\u2019 jail on May 6.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The 72-year-old man had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/courts-crime\/church-pastor-repeatedly-molested-girl-with-severe-specific-language-impairment?ref=inline-article\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"gap-x-04 items-center inline text-primary-60 select-auto\" aria-label=\"link\" target=\"_blank\" data-testid=\"custom-link\"><span class=\"font-body-baseline-regular inline\" data-testid=\"paragraph-test-id\">pleaded guilty in April to a molestation charge<\/span><\/a>. Two other charges were considered during his sentencing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Details about him and the church cannot be disclosed due to a gag order to protect the identity of the victim.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Her\u00a0condition\u00a0is a developmental disorder that affects her ability to understand and use spoken and written language, despite having no hearing or intellectual problems.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Before handing down the sentence, Deputy Principal District Judge Ong Chin Rhu said the case involved a serious abuse of trust and the man\u2019s offence<!-- --> <!-- -->involved skin-to-skin contact with the girl.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">She also noted that the offender was a pastor of the church which the victim had attended.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">A woman, who identified herself as the man\u2019s friend, told The Straits Times outside the courtroom that he is no longer a pastor at the church. <\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">In earlier proceedings, the court heard that the girl\u2019s mother had frequently sought advice from the man on family and spiritual matters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The victim began accompanying\u00a0her mother\u00a0to church daily during her school holidays.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The man later asked for the girl to help him with paperwork and administrative duties in his office.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">He started committing the offences between April 16, 2015, and April 15, 2016, when she was 12 years old.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">He molested the girl for the first time by touching her chest over her clothes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">On another occasion, she was in his office when he slipped his hand underneath her top and touched her bare skin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">A few weeks later, the man molested her again by touching her private parts over her clothes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Deputy Public Prosecutor Adelle Tai told the court in April: \u201cFollowing the first incident&#8230; the accused began giving the victim $20 weekly. On certain weeks, the accused would give her $40.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">\u201cThe victim understood these frequent payments as consideration for her silence regarding the offences, though this was not explicitly communicated by the accused to the victim.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">From then until 2019, he continued targeting the girl, performing acts including touching her chest and private parts. By then, she had received around $2,000 from him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The victim stopped going to the church regularly in early 2020 due to Covid-19 pandemic restrictions. <\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">She did not tell anyone about her ordeal, as the man had told her to keep it a secret.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">But in early 2022, the girl was praying when she suddenly experienced flashbacks of the acts that the man had committed against her.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Unable to endure the distress any longer, she confided in her sister and mother on Sept 13 that year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The victim alerted the police two days later, and she sought medical assistance at a hospital.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">A medical report stated that she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder associated with a two- to three-year history of increased anxious mood, recurrent thoughts about past molestation incidents, nightmares and avoidant behaviours.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-body-baseline-regular text-primary\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The man was arrested on Dec 8, 2025.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/courts-crime\/3-years-jail-for-man-who-molested-a-girl-while-working-as-pastor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SINGAPORE \u2013 A man who was a pastor when he repeatedly molested a girl with severe specific language impairment was sentenced to three years\u2019 jail&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}