SINGAPORE - A private tuition teacher who molested his student in 2011 was on Thursday sentenced to 18 months in prison.

He pleaded guilty to two of three offences committed on the 11-year-old girl during weekly mathematics tuition sessions.

The court heard that these sessions had been held since June 2010 at a maisonette along Potong Pasir Ave 1 that belonged to the victim's grandmother. Lessons would take place on the first floor, while the girl's relatives would usually be upstairs.

In one instance on July 6, 2011, the man, now 58, reached under the girl's clothes while she was resting her head on the table, and touched her breast.

A week later, he touched her chest over her T-shirt. The girl, now 15, pushed his hand away and a police report was made the next day.

He could have been jailed for up to five years and fined for each of the charges he faced, but cannot be caned as he is over 50.