Man appealing against sentence for sex with 15-year-old, cites wife’s ‘wayang’ illness

SINGAPORE: A man who was sentenced to 10 months’ jail for having sex with a 15-year-old girl is appealing against the jail term.

In his defence, the man cited a psychologist report stating he experienced an emotional roller-coaster as a result of his wife’s “wayang” illness that affected their sex life.

“Wayang” is a term that describes someone being overly dramatic.

The 41-year-old Singaporean cannot be named due to a gag order issued by the court forbidding the identification of the victim, witness and accused.

He pleaded guilty in April to a charge of sexual penetration of a minor, with four other related charges taken into consideration.

According to a judgment made available on Wednesday (May 29), the man found the minor’s profile on an online dating application before mid-March 2022.

He contacted her via Telegram as he found her attractive and asked if she was interested in a sugar daddy, offering her a weekly allowance.

He also asked her for “sexy and revealing” photos of herself, which she gave.

The pair met twice in March and April in 2022 where they had sex. On the first occasion, the man paid her S$200 (US$148). The girl told him she was 18 when she was actually 15, but he did not verify her actual age.

The prosecution sought 10 to 12 months’ jail, while defence lawyer Mr Sinnadurai T Maniam asked for a sentence at the lowest end of the range sought by the prosecution.

He said the plea of guilt was his client’s “manifestation of his very intense remorse” and said his client had “all along (been) of the view that (she) was 18 years old”.

The lawyer also said his client’s family – particularly his wife who suffers from blood cancer – would “suffer tremendous trauma and hardship” if he is dealt with too harshly.

THE PSYCHOLOGIST REPORT

The defence tendered a report by a psychologist, setting out the man’s account of his life at the time of the offences.

He said he experienced “an emotional roller-coaster” from early 2020 to December 2022 as a result of his wife’s “wayang” illness. 

Despite seeing many doctors and undertaking many blood tests, the symptoms persisted with no concrete diagnoses or treatment.

Because his wife was in pain and felt down, their sex life “reduced to a bare minimum of once every one to two months”, and the offender “resorted to using pornography and masturbation” to get “release”.

He claimed that “his acting out in paid sex services” was a distraction from his negative emotions and state of helplessness and gave him some excitement and sense of control.

He also said he worked more days with longer hours due to a manpower shortage at work, and that he sometimes did not mind staying back to avoid seeing his wife and her suffering.

He put on about 10kg from comfort eating, lost interest in his usual activities and had fleeting suicidal thoughts as well as guilty feelings towards his wife.

Based on this, the psychologist said the offender had been suffering from major depressive disorder around the period of the offences.

District Judge Sharmila Sripathy-Shanaz said the law regards young girls under the age of 16 as “lacking in sexual and emotional maturity to make decisions in their own best interests about their sexuality, and thus assumes a paternalistic role by stepping in to prevent their exposure to sexual activity regardless of their purported consent”.

She found the psychologist’s report “poorly reasoned”, with no proper explanation as to how the diagnosis was reached, and “so deficient as to be valueless to the court in this case”.

The offender is out on bail pending his appeal against the sentence.