SINGAPORE - Just three days after getting to know a secondary school student through online chat service QQ, Qiu Shuihua took the 14-year-old to a makeshift office near his workplace and touched her private part.

The 23-year-old Chinese national repeated the act two days later when they were at his HDB flat in Boon Lay, and pressured her into having sex with him twice.

On Monday, Qiu was sentenced to four months' jail for underage sex with the minor in 2012, whose age he had been aware of from her QQ profile. He pleaded guilty to two of four counts against him, with the rest taken into consideration.

The court heard that Qiu, then 21 and a production operator with an engineering firm, had met the student in person multiple times in the days after becoming acquainted with her on QQ on Nov 11.

When they met at his workplace in Bukit Batok Crescent on Nov 14, she gave him a pendant with the Chinese character for love on it as a token of her affection for him. Qiu then brought the girl into a container office just outside his workplace, where he committed the first sex act on her.

Two days later, the girl agreed to have sex with him at his flat in Block 262 Boon Lay Drive after he said they might as well break up if she was unwilling.

Passing sentence, District Judge Toh Yung Cheong said there was an element of exploitation since Qiu had committed the offences after knowing the girl for a few days.

Pleading for leniency, defence counsel Laurence Goh said his client has lost his job and would likely be deported back home after serving his sentence.

Qiu had been sending back most of his salary to his parents in China since starting work here in 2011, the lawyer added. He is staying with his girlfriend, who has forgiven him for what he did.

For each count of underage sex with the girl, who is now 16, Qiu could have been been jailed for up to 10 years and fined.