'Religious influencer' gets jail and caning for raping boy and molesting his brother

SINGAPORE: A self-styled religious mentor, who is not an accredited religious teacher, took two young boys from a broken family into his fold, but raped the younger one at least 10 times and molested the older one.

It left the boys, then aged six to eight and 11 to 12, suicidal and made the close brothers drift apart.

The 37-year-old Singaporean man, who was married at the time of the offences, was sentenced on Monday (Aug 17) to 27 years and 10 months' jail and 24 strokes of the cane.

He was diagnosed with paedophilic disorder, a psychiatric condition involving persistent sexual urges or fantasies involving prepubescent children. However, this had no contributing link to the offences, the court heard.

The man cannot be named due to gag orders protecting the victims' identities.

He pleaded guilty to three charges of rape and two counts of molestation, with 12 charges taken into consideration. 

THE CASE

The court heard that the man was never recognised as an Islamic or Quranic teacher under the Administration of Muslim Law at all times. He was described as a "religious influencer" in court documents.

Before he hit on the two brothers, he had targeted another victim, who was 17 at the time. The pair met through mutual friends and became close after spending time together at a mosque and texting each other almost daily.

The offender acted as a big brother and religious mentor to the first victim.

However, during dinner at a restaurant in December 2021, the offender molested the victim during the meal, telling him "don't worry" and that it was "not painful".

The victim reported the case to the police that same month, and the offender was arrested and released on police bail.

Despite this, he went on to prey on the two young brothers. Their parents had divorced and they were under the care of their mother, but she was admitted to a drug rehabilitation centre.

The boys stayed with their grandmother between October 2021 and October 2023.

In April 2022, at an unnamed mosque, the older brother chanced upon the offender and recognised him from social media.

The boy was around nine to 10 years old when he introduced himself to the offender, and they later spent time together and grew close.

The offender would take the boy to play football with his friends, and also to his home.

As the boy grew closer to the offender, he confided in the older man about his family and how his father had abandoned them.

The boy told his grandmother about the offender and she invited the man over so that she could assess him in person. She found him to be very religious.

The man regularly put up social media videos mainly touching on religion, and the grandmother saw the online posts for herself.

After learning that he was also a childhood friend of her sons, she came to trust him.

The man grew even closer to the boy and took him to school daily.

He began visiting the victim's grandmother's flat, occasionally taking his wife along.

Over time, he also got to know the younger brother, began to spend time with him and became close to him.

He took the boy to the mosque for prayers, played with him, fetched him from school and took him out to eat.

The offender told the boys' grandmother that he would like to be a father figure and religious guide to the boys, since their parents were absent and he had no children.

The grandmother trusted that he would be a good father figure to them, and allowed him to meet her grandchildren more regularly.

She told their mother about this, and the mother did not interfere since she had entrusted the care of her sons to the grandmother.

Since then, the two boys treated the offender as a godfather, calling him "daddy", while he referred to them as his sons.

With the grandmother's permission, the offender took the boys to sleep over at his house and spend time with his wife. He would also take the boys for prayers at a mosque.

His wife had been trying to conceive, and the man said that they were blessed by being entrusted with the care of the boys.

RAPE OF THE YOUNGER BOY

Between 2022 and 2023, the man began raping the younger brother, who was six to eight years old then.

The boy had told the man that he was scared to use the toilet at the mosque alone and asked to be accompanied.

After doing so, the man developed the urge to rape the boy and devised a plan to do so.

He asked the boy if he wanted to win a "prize", a toy gun, and said that he would give it to him "the next time".

On another occasion, when the boy was at the man's home, the man promised to give the boy the toy gun.

He then raped the boy. He told the boy that they were just "having fun" and not to tell anyone.

He added that if the boy told anyone, that would mean he did not "love Daddy", and that "Daddy" would go to jail.

The boy responded that he would keep it a secret, as he was afraid that he would get scolded.

The man raped the younger brother many more times from 2022 to 2023.

They developed the codename "secret" to refer to the act of rape, with the man choosing this term to impress on the boy that he should not disclose it to anyone.

The man would give the boy presents such as toy guns, helicopters and pistols as a reward after raping him.

He also told the boy that the rape was his way of "punishing" him for being naughty.

The two brothers began going to the mosque after school five days a week. They spent an hour at the mosque with other friends at a religious class conducted by the offender.

On the first day that the boys attended this class, the offender told them to stay behind.

He told the younger brother that he had something to tell him, and asked the older boy to stay put.

He took the younger boy into a toilet at the mosque and raped him, as "he liked the excitement of doing so in public".

THE OLDER BROTHER

In early 2024, when the older brother was 11 to 12, the offender visited the boys at their home.

The older boy initially refused to meet him, but relented on his insistence, and they went to a nearby staircase landing.

While talking to the boy, the offender molested him. This was the first of several such incidents.

The man texted the victim later to say that he noticed the boy's reaction to the molestation and claimed that the boy "liked it".

He told the boy to keep it a secret as "Daddy loves (you)". If not, the boy would be "selfish" and the offender would be forced to "share everything" he knew about the boy and tell his grandmother.

He was trying to humiliate the boy into keeping silent.

DISCOVERY

In April 2024, when the two brothers were visiting their relatives, the younger boy asked their mother if a certain act was wrong, describing what was done to him.

The mother was shocked and after questioning him, the boy said it was the offender who had done that to him.

His older brother then told their mother that the offender had also molested him.

As they continued visiting relatives, the godbrother of the boys' mother, when told what had happened, asked them to call the offender.

The godbrother confronted the offender over the phone, but the man denied it.

Unconvinced, the godbrother pressed him to explain himself in person or he would call the police.

The offender then went down to meet the boys' mother and her godbrother.

At first, the man said that he could not have done it because he had erectile dysfunction.

The older brother recounted what the offender had done to him, and the man feigned shock.

He eventually admitted to sexually assaulting the two boys on their mother's questioning, but claimed that he had done so under the control of a supernatural spirit called a "djinn".

He claimed that he had found himself with the younger brother when the "djinn" left his body.

A relative called the police that night and the man was arrested. He has been remanded since then and assessed to have paedophilic disorder. 

He denied being sexually attracted to children, but his recurrent behaviour and history of "multiple boy victims" indicated otherwise, the court heard.

The court also heard that his disorder did not contribute to the offences and his risk of reoffending is "moderate", especially towards boys who have a relationship with him.

It was further noted that although he expressed remorse over his acts with the younger brother, he externalised them and appeared to trivialise the other allegations.

IMPACT ON THE BROTHERS

The younger brother had nightmares about the incidents, feared going to places that would make him recall the offender, and has been unable to go to school at times when overcome with memories of what he had been through.

He developed self-hatred and suicidal thoughts, and engaged in self-harm. He struggled to trust others, at times believing that nobody cares about him.

He blamed his older brother and hated him, because he had first come to know the offender. He occasionally felt an urge to hurt his brother.

The older brother, too, developed suicidal thoughts and felt disgusted and "unhygienic" because of what the man did to him.

He had trouble trusting people and making friends at the mosque, where some people asked him what had happened.

He blamed himself for what had happened to his younger brother, since he was the one who had brought the offender into the family.

The brothers used to be close but grew apart because of the sexual assaults.

Deputy Public Prosecutors Hidayat Amir and Wong Woon Kwong sought a jail term of between 26 years and five months and 28 years and 11 months for the man, along with the maximum 24 strokes of the cane.

Mr Hidayat said that the offender had entered the lives of the brothers as a father figure but sexually abused them.

He raped the younger brother at least 10 times, the prosecution noted.

"The boys' trust in him was ... total, and he abused every inch of it," Mr Hidayat added.

The boys' grandmother entrusted them to the offender after assessing him, checking his social media, consulting her sons and observing his interactions, but he exploited this.

The abuse of trust by the man also "took on an insidious form of exploitation of his religious facade", Mr Hidayat said.

The man's acts harmed the victims' relationships with those around them, between themselves as brothers and with their friends at the mosque, he added.

The older brother described his younger brother as having a hard time at the mosque, "erratic and unmoored from the person he once was".

He also described how his younger brother had changed, is now emotionally volatile and anxious, and lashes out at their mother.

The older brother, now a young teenager, bears the blame by himself and his brother for opening the door for the offender to enter their lives, Mr Hidayat said.

"To the two boys, the accused appeared as a well-known man of faith who promised to be a religious guide to them," he added.

"Little did they know that beneath his religious cloak stood a paedophile. They did not know that he would rob them of their innocence, self-worth and dignity.

"Years after their realisation, they now face the excruciating task of piecing themselves back together. It is a task no child should ever face, and one that may never be fully complete."

MITIGATION

Defence lawyer Selvarajan Balamurugan from Regal Law sought 20 years and eight months' jail, and 24 strokes of the cane.

He said his client accepts that his acts on the young victims were vile and degrading and that he stood before the court with a profound sense of shame and regret.

The offender, who appeared in court in a prison outfit, held his head down for most of the hearing, shaking his head when he heard explicit details.

"As his counsel, Your Honour, I have condemned his actions, and he knows that," Mr Balamurugan said.

"But having said all these things, it has to be noted that his unequivocal admission of guilt has saved the victims the ordeal of having to testify."

He also said that his client had reflected on his actions in his time in remand and promises to ensure that he does not repeat them.

"The accused wishes to apologise sincerely to the victims and their families and seeks forgiveness for his misdeeds," the lawyer added.

Justice Kwek Mean Luck identified multiple aggravating factors in this case, including the severe harm suffered by the victims, the breach of trust, the premeditation and the vulnerability of the younger boy.

For the charge where the offence took place in a mosque, this is an additional aggravating factor, the judge said.

The mosque should have been the victim's safe sanctuary, Justice Kwek added.

"What the accused did was utterly abhorrent and heinous. It was an abomination."

He said that the boys looked up to the man for trust and protection, but he "betrayed them", preying on them instead of protecting them and causing them deep harm.

For each count of raping a minor, the man could have been jailed for between eight and 20 years and given at least 12 strokes of the cane.