SINGAPORE - Posing as a police officer, a man asked a couple for their work permits, and later molested a domestic worker, a court heard.
Freelance tutor Parthiban R. Kandasamy committed four offences on June 5 this year - a day before another case of impersonation was to be mentioned in court.
The 39-year-old was sentenced to 18 months' jail on Monday (July 25) after pleading guilty to three offences - pretending to be a police officer, and molesting and insulting the modesty of the 31-year-old Indonesian maid.
District Judge Lee Poh Choo ordered his sentence to commence after completing his current sentence of four months' jail imposed last month, also for posing as a police officer.
The court heard that the maid was with her 31-year-old construction worker boyfriend from Bangladesh at the sky garden of a multi-storey carpark at Tanglin Halt Road when Parthiban approached them.
He identified himself as a police officer and asked for their work permits.
He looked at the permits and led the Bangladeshi national to a nearby staircase landing. He questioned him about his relationship with the woman.
Parthiban returned to the garden and told the man to wait there while he asked the maid to follow him to the staircase landing.
There, he asked her what they had been doing. He asked if she had any cigarettes. When she said no, he touched her hip area on the pretext of checking her for cigarettes.
He asked her to pull up her her tank top, and also lift up her skirt.
He then asked her again what they had been doing. When she said they had been kissing he asked her to show him how and she kissed him on his mouth. Parthiban grabbed her back and kissed her.
He made her touch his groin area about five times.
When she asked for her work permit, he returned it to her. They then went back to the garden area and he told her to leave. At some point, he had told the Bangladeshi man to leave but he found him waiting for his girlfriend.
The maid went home immediately and told her employers, who took her to make a police report.
In his submissions on sentence, Deputy Public Prosecutor James Chew said Parthiban had behaved like a predator and went about committing offences in a "very measured, deliberate and calculated way", and deserved a "stronger sentence" to deter him.
Parthiban, who is married, had similar molest convictions in 2000, and for carnal connection in 2008.
He could have been jailed for up to two years and fined for impersonation. For outrage of modesty, he could have been jailed for up to two years, fined, caned or received any combined punishment. The maximum punishment for insulting a woman's modesty is one year's jail and a fine.
