SINGAPORE - A former senior manager in the finance sector was jailed for two weeks on Monday (Oct 10) for touching the buttocks of two women on MRT trains.

Malaysian Lim Kee Sun, 38, who is a Singapore permanent resident, admitted to molesting a 27-year-old woman on Dec 30, and brushing a 37-year-old woman's buttock three times sometime between October and December 2014. He also touched the latter a second time but this was taken into consideration during his sentencing.

The court heard that Lim and the 27-year-old victim boarded the train at Sembawang MRT station heading towards Marina Bay at about 8.20am on Dec 30 last year.

He positioned himself so that he stood behind the victim, who was wearing a long grey dress.

Between 8.20am and 8.40am, he intentionally used his left hand to make contact with the victim's buttock several times. A 30-year-old witness on his left saw what he did and used her camera phone to take his photograph and his hand touching the buttock.

Lim alighted at Bishan MRT station.

The witness later posted the photographs she had taken in an online article to warn readers.

Investigations also showed that sometime between October and December 2014, Lim used his hand to brush against the 37-year-old woman's buttock three times when he stood behind her on the Marina Bay-bound MRT train.

The woman felt him brushing against her but was too afraid to confront Lim at the time.

After coming across the witness' online article, she recognised Lim as the person who had molested her. She then lodged a police report on Jan 2 this year. Lim was arrested five days later.

His lawyer Steven Lam said in mitigation that his client, who is a self-made man, had been diagnosed with acute stress disorder.

He said the father of two was supporting his family, his paternal grandmother and parents-in-law. His wife is a homemaker.

Counsel said that Lim, who had resigned from his company, would probably have to retrain himself to look after three families, and that Lim had acted "out of character".

But Deputy Public Prosecutor Tan Soo Tet said Lim had not said anywhere in his mitigation or his psychiatric report that he committed the offences to relieve stress, nor was there a causal link.

"This is not a case of mere fleeting brushes," he said, adding that Lim touched the 27-year-old victim for almost 20 minutes, and in the case of the 37-year-old victim, three times.

Lim could have been jailed for up to two years, fined, caned or received any combined punishment.