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SINGAPORE: A former army captain was introduced to a 15-year-old student by his ex-partner, a cook in the navy, and the trio engaged in sex acts at a multi-storey car park<\/a>.<\/p>\n Thereafter, the captain stayed in contact with the minor and met him for more sexual acts, filming them for his “personal collection”.<\/p>\n Chaw Chia Jun, a 41-year-old Singaporean, was sentenced to 17 months’ jail on Tuesday (Oct 20).<\/p>\n He pleaded guilty to three charges of sexual penetration of a minor, causing a minor to perform sexual penetration and producing child abuse material.<\/p>\n The court heard that Chaw was 39 at the time of the offences in 2024 and held the rank of captain in the Singapore Army.<\/p>\n His co-accused, 26-year-old Owen Toh Wei Song, was a cook with the Republic of Singapore Navy.<\/p>\n Chaw and Toh had been in a relationship between 2021 and 2022 and remained in contact after breaking up.<\/p>\n Around April 2024, the victim, a 15-year-old student in Secondary 4, conducted an internet search for ways to make friends online.<\/p>\n He came to an online forum for mature Singaporean gay men and found Toh’s profile.<\/p>\n He initiated contact with Toh and they began discussing sexual topics. Toh said he was not experienced in a certain niche area but that Chaw was.<\/p>\n The victim agreed to meet Chaw, with Toh lying to the victim that Chaw was 32.<\/p>\n Sometime before Jun 5, 2024, Chaw picked Toh up before driving to fetch the victim.<\/p>\n They then went to a multi-storey car park in Punggol where Chaw asked the victim to strip.<\/p>\n Toh then engaged in sex acts with the victim, with Chaw filming.<\/p>\n Chaw performed a sex act on the victim and the trio later got dressed and left.<\/p>\n After the incident, Chaw sent a copy of the video to Toh at his request.<\/p>\n Chaw later met the victim on his own on several occasions.<\/p>\n One such encounter took place at a shopping mall on Jun 5, 2024, where they entered a toilet for the disabled and engaged in sexual acts.<\/p>\n Chaw took two videos of the acts, one of which captured the victim’s face.<\/p>\n Chaw kept the videos on his phone. He later said he made and kept recordings of his sexual activities with others in what he described as his “personal collection”.<\/p>\n The victim’s mother and sisters grew concerned about his behaviour as well as the gifts he had been receiving from a man, which turned out to be Chaw.<\/p>\n When confronted, the victim told his mother and sisters what had happened before lodging a police report on Oct 23, 2024.<\/p>\n Toh was sentenced to 12 months’ jail last month.<\/p>\n Deputy Public Prosecutor Maximilian Chew sought 17 to 21-and-a-half months’ jail for Chaw, noting that the offence of sexual penetration of a minor exists to protect a class of vulnerable people – minors under 16.<\/p>\n Defence lawyer Mark Yeo from Fortress Law said his sentencing position of 14 to 17 months’ jail <\/strong>was not far from the prosecutor’s.<\/p>\n However, for the charge similar to Toh’s, Mr Yeo said the sentence should be lower.<\/p>\n This is because Toh was the one who introduced Chaw to the victim and was the more active party in the car park incident, he argued.<\/p>\n The prosecution had argued that the car park incident involved “gratuitous degradation” as the victim was naked in the open.<\/p>\n Mr Yeo said the location had been selected “in discussion with the victim”, and it was Toh who asked the victim to strip.<\/p>\n Toh himself also stripped naked, said Mr Yeo.<\/p>\n In his mitigation plea, Mr Yeo wrote that Chaw had served as a regular in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) for about 20 years since enlistment.<\/p>\n He has since left the SAF and works in a friend’s company in a role related to the food and beverage sector, said the lawyer.<\/p>\n Mr Yeo said his client also met the victim to “enjoy each other’s company” and have meals, walks or shop together.<\/p>\n He said his client “genuinely but mistakenly” believed that the victim was of age, but accepts that he should have verified this.<\/p>\n When the judge was about to pronounce sentence, Chaw wanted to speak but was told to do so through his lawyer.<\/p>\n Mr Yeo then told the court that Chaw wanted to highlight that the victim had lied about his age and sent over a fake photo of someone else in a Telegram chat.<\/p>\n District Judge Kenneth Chin acknowledged this but added that Chaw had not taken further active steps to ascertain the victim’s age.<\/p>\n He said the objective of the offence was to protect minors from exploitation, regardless of whether the minor is an active participant or initiator.<\/p>\n “Absence of coercion is a neutral factor and is not a mitigating factor,” said the judge.<\/p>\n He agreed with the defence that Toh had a slightly higher culpability than Chaw for their similar charge.<\/p>\n For sexual penetration of a minor, Chaw could have been jailed for up to 10 years, fined, or both.<\/p>\n For producing child abuse material, he could have been jailed for up to 10 years and fined or caned.<\/p>\n In response to queries from CNA, a spokesperson from the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) said Chaw was suspended from all duties following his arrest in 2024.<\/p>\n “He has since been released from regular service and is no longer with the SAF,” said the spokesperson.<\/p>\n MINDEF added that SAF holds its service personnel to high standards of discipline and integrity, and service personnel who commit offences will be dealt with in accordance with the law.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n SINGAPORE: A former army captain was introduced to a 15-year-old student by his ex-partner, a cook in the navy, and the trio engaged in sex…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":94432,"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-94431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94431","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=94431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/94432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=94431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=94431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=94431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}THE CASE<\/h2>\n
CHAW MET VICTIM AGAIN<\/h2>\n
SENTENCING ARGUMENTS<\/h2>\n
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