SINGAPORE - A 44-year-old man was sentenced to nine months' jail and three strokes of the cane on Tuesday for molesting a teenage girl last December.

Mohamad Razak Mohamad Rajab ambushed his 17-year-old victim while she was walking through a HDB block in Hougang.

The girl did not know Mohamad Razak before the incident, though she had seen him around the neighbourhood.

Shortly before the assault, the man had spotted her at a void deck with her friend. Mohamad Razak got the friend to leave by giving her money to buy drinks, then kissed his victim. He later asked her to follow him, but she turned him down and decided instead to walk to a friend's home.

He followed her and pulled her into a makeshift toilet, where he proceeded to kiss and molest her.

Mohamad Razak could have been jailed for up to two years and fined for outraging the girl's modesty with criminal force.