A PAEDOPHILE who pretended to be a cop and sexually abused three young girls was given 12 years' preventive detention and 12 strokes of the cane on Wednesday.
Muhammad Sufian Hussain was found suitable for preventive detention, a regime for repeat offenders which offers no chance of early release.
The 34-year-old former cafe manager had earlier admitted to sexually abusing an 11-year-old girl with his finger, and pressing the breasts of a 13-year-old and an 11-year-old girl; and posing as a police officer to conduct a spot check on the latter.
The court heard that he flashed his ez-link card at the girls to make them believe he was a law enforcement officer.
On May 26 last year, he told the then 11-year-old student that he wanted to check her home for hidden cigarettes. After finding out that her parents had gone to work and her sister had gone to school, he told her to take him to her flat in the Bedok area.
He checked the drawers in all the bedrooms and asked her to go to the toilet as he wanted to check whether she smoked.
Stripped of her clothes, he told her to squat on the toilet bowl and he then squat down to look up at her. After that, he proceeded to check the rooms again before telling her to return to the toilet for another check. There he sexually abused her.
About five months later, using the same ruse, he posed as a plainclothes policeman and took a 13-old girl to Bedok Reservoir Road where he pressed her breasts at a staircase landing. He also exposed himself to her.
He outraged the modesty of a third victim in a similar way at a staircase landing in Tampines that month.
Community Court Judge Ng Peng Hong agreed with the prosecution that Sufian deserved a deterrent sentence in view of several aggravating factors. To protect the public, he said Sufian should be detained for a substantial period of time.
In 2003, he was diagnosed to have exhibitionism, a form of paraphilia, but he defaulted in treatment after one outpatient attendance. He has similar convictions for outrage and insulting modesty. He could have been detained up to 20 years.
