SINGAPORE - A physics teacher who met a 14-year-old boy on Facebook has become the second man to be convicted of sexual offences with the teenager.
Paul Tan Sze Aik, 37, who is currently suspended from teaching, admitted three charges on Tuesday - two of committing an obscene act and one of getting the boy to give him oral sex. Three other charges will be taken into consideration when he is sentenced.
Last month, Suhaimi Shamsudin, 24, then an undergraduate, was sentenced to 12 months' jail for having sex with the same teenager. He is appealing against sentence.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Sharmila Sripathy-Shanaz said Tan had a Facebook account under the name "Alegon Kenny Lonewolf" specifically to meet new friends online.
In November 2012, he befriended the minor. In the course of their communication, Tan introduced himself as Shawn and said he was 19 years old and living alone. They agreed to meet in person and spend time at Tan's flat.
On Dec 2 that year, he picked up the minor from Bishan bus interchange and took him for lunch before going to his flat. He left the teen for a few hours and later took him to a restaurant for dinner, together with another teenage boy who was a friend of Tan.
After dinner, the minor watched television in the living room while Tan surfed the Internet and packed his bag for an overseas trip the next day. At about midnight, Tan and the minor went to Tan's bed, where the offences took place. The minor left the flat the following afternoon and they never contacted each other again.
The incidents came to light when the minor, uneasy about his homosexual inclination and sexual experiences, confided in a police officer he had befriended. He made a police report on Jan 3 last year stating that he had engaged in "unnatural sex with two male subjects" between October and December 2012.
Tan's case was adjourned until June 18 for submissions on sentencing and mitigation by Mr Yusfiyanto Yatiman.
The maximum penalty for committing an obscene act is a $5,000 fine and two years' jail. For sexual penetration of a person below 16, Tan could be jailed for up to 10 years and fined.
