Jail term upped from 6 weeks to 8 months for man who downloaded child sex abuse material
SINGAPORE – A man who downloaded sexually explicit material involving children after he joined a Telegram chat group in which members shared pornography had his jail term increased from six weeks to eight months on May 15.
The prosecution had appealed to the High Court for a heavier sentence to be handed down to Randy Rosigit, 28, who had initially been sentenced by a district court in 2023.
The High Court panel, comprising Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, Justice Tay Yong Kwang and Justice Vincent Hoong, will issue a written judgment at a later date.
Randy, an Indonesian and Singapore permanent resident, had pleaded guilty to a charge of possessing two still images and six videos that constituted child abuse material.
These had been shared in a Telegram group that he joined in June 2021.
The two still images showed underage girls who were naked, while the six videos depicted girls in various sexual acts.
One video shows a girl, who appeared to be under six years old, being groped by a man.
The duration of the videos ranged from 51sec to 37min and 46sec.
The images and videos were found in his portable drive and mobile phone after the police raided his home on Oct 22, 2021.
Two other charges were taken into account during sentencing. One was for gaining access to child abuse material in May 2020 via a web address, and the other was for possessing 119 obscene films that were not child abuse material.
On May 15, Deputy Public Prosecutor Gail Wong appealed for at least six months’ jail for Randy.
She asked the court to set out a sentencing framework for the offence of possessing child abuse material to reflect the need for deterrence.
Under the law, the maximum punishment is five years’ jail, with possible caning and fine.
The prosecutor urged the court to consider the challenges of investigating such offences and the growing volume of child abuse material circulated worldwide.
DPP Wong contended that the sentencing factors include the quantity of material involved, the nature of the abuse depicted, and whether the offender distributed or traded the material.
She proposed classifying the types of material into two categories: the first for more heinous material depicting penetrative sex, sexual contact or physical violence, and the second for abuse that did not involve physical contact.
The DPP argued that in Randy’s case, five of the pieces of material in his possession fell within the first category and that his starting sentence should be 12 to 15 months’ jail.
After taking into account the May 2020 offence and adjusting the sentence downwards for his guilty plea, the DPP said a sentence of eight to 10 months’ jail would be appropriate.
Source : https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime/jail-term-upped-from-6-weeks-to-8-months-for-man-who-downloaded-child-sex-abuse-material
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Date : 2024-05-15 09:55:00
