Public Prosecutor v Abdul Rahman Bin A Karim
| Jurisdiction | Singapore |
| Judge | Shawn Ho |
| Judgment Date | 21 April 2021 |
| Neutral Citation | [2021] SGDC 72 |
| Court | District Court (Singapore) |
| Docket Number | District Arrest Case No. 916053 of 2020 |
| Year | 2021 |
| Published date | 08 May 2021 |
| Hearing Date | 21 April 2021 |
| Plaintiff Counsel | Tay Jia En (Attorney-General's Chambers) |
| Defendant Counsel | Accused in person. |
| Subject Matter | Criminal Procedure and Sentencing,Section 420A,Penal Code |
| Citation | [2021] SGDC 72 |
This was the first case prosecuted under s 420A of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed).
The Accused pleaded guilty to one charge of obtaining sexual services dishonestly from the Victim, by deceiving her into believing that he would pay $1,500.00 for 2 hours of sexual services. No payment was made by the Accused for these sexual services afforded to him.
Having framed a sentencing matrix, the Prosecution sought an imprisonment term of at least 3 years. For reasons given below at [59(a)-(e)], I declined to propose a sentencing matrix for s 420A of the Penal Code. Instead, in this judgment, I will (a) set out the offence-specific and offender-specific factors for offences under s 420A of the Penal Code, and (b) apply these sentencing considerations to the present case.
All things considered, I sentenced the Accused to 32 months’ imprisonment. I set out my reasons.
ChargeThe Accused pleaded guilty to one charge under s 420A(1) punishable under s 420A(2) of the Penal Code. The charge was as follows:
Statement of factsYou, ABDUL RAHMAN BIN A KARIM, MALE/ 37 YEARS OLD, SINGAPORE CITIZEN, are charged that you, on 11 August 2020, in Singapore, did obtain services for yourself dishonestly from [the Victim],
to wit , by deceiving her into believing that you were a sexual services agent and will deliver $1,500.00 to her in exchange for her providing you with 2 hours of sexual services, and her sexual services were made available to you on the basis that payment will be made for or in respect of them, and you obtained her sexual services without any payment having been made for or in respect of them, and when you obtained her sexual services, you knew that her sexual services were being made available to you on the basis that payment will be made for or in respect of them, and you intended that payment will not be made, and by such manner of deception, you dishonestly induced [the Victim] to deliver her sexual services to you, which she would not have done so had she not been so deceived, and you have thereby committed an offence under Section 420A(1) and punishable under Section 420A(2) of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed).
The Accused is Abdul Rahman Bin A Karim, a 37-year-old male Singaporean. At the time of the offence, the Accused was employed as a warehouse assistant, and resided at Bedok (the “Accused’s flat”).
The Victim is a 25-year-old female Singaporean. At the time of the offence, the Victim was a student.
First information report
On 12 August 2020, at about 11.09am, the Victim lodged an e-Police report with Jurong Division HQ to inform that she had been cheated after she did not receive payment for sexual services she provided on the evening of 11 August 2020. The incident location provided was the Accused’s flat.
Facts pertaining to the charge
Investigations revealed that sometime on 11 August 2020, the Victim received a direct message on Instagram (“IG”) from a user bearing the IG handle “@tempt_soul”. The direct message stated: “
Investigations revealed that prior to this, the Victim had never once provided any sexual or social escort services to anyone. The Victim had also never advertised herself to be interested in providing any sexual or social escort services. However, as the Victim was interested in earning fast cash to pay for the expenses for her school’s final-year project, she duly replied to indicate her interest. Through the IG conversation, the Victim understood the job description to be for the provision of sexual services, as she was instructed by “@tempt_soul” to bring her own condoms, and to provide her name, age, race, address, as well as height and weight. “@tempt_soul” stated that the Victim’s job was to provide sexual services to a client for the duration of 2 hours for a fee of $1,500.00. Subsequently, “@tempt_soul” requested to move their conversation to the chat application, “Telegram”. “Telegram” is a messaging application platform which allows users to permanently delete chat message history for both the sender and the recipient of the message. The Victim agreed.
Subsequently, the Victim corresponded over “Telegram” with a user bearing the “Telegram” handle “D Angelz”. The Victim understood that the user “D Angelz” was the same person who was using the IG handle “@tempt_soul”. “D Angelz” then provided the Victim with instructions to proceed to the Accused’s flat via a Grab private hire transport at 7.00pm on 11 August 2020.
Investigations revealed that the Accused had used both the IG handle “@tempt_soul” and the “Telegram” account with the username “D Angelz” to correspond with the Victim. The Victim agreed to make 2 hours of her sexual services available to the Accused on the basis that payment of $1,500.00 will be made for or in respect of them. The Victim did not ask for upfront payment for her sexual services as “D Angelz” had assured her that the client would pay her once she had provided the sexual services. The Victim then took a Grab private hire transport from her residence in the west of Singapore to the Accused’s flat as instructed. During her commute, the Victim realised that her earlier “Telegram” chat history with “D Angelz” had been deleted. However, the Victim did not suspect that anything was amiss then.
The Victim arrived at the Accused’s flat at 7.16pm. The Accused answered the door and brought the Victim into his room. Thereat, the Victim engaged in one round of penile-vaginal intercourse with the Accused. The Accused wanted a second round and offered to pay the victim an additional $500.00 in order to penetrate her anus with his penis. On the basis that she would be paid an additional $500.00, the Victim agreed to try but told the Accused to “go slow” when inserting his penis into her anus. The Victim then got into position by turning around to face her buttocks to the Accused, with her knees and elbows on the bed. However, the Accused proceeded to forcefully penetrate the Victim’s anus from behind with his penis. This caused the Victim immense pain and she screamed, telling the Accused repeatedly to stop. However, the Accused persisted in penetrating the Victim’s anus with his penis by grabbing her waist with his hands such that the Victim could not dislodge the Accused’s penis from her anus. After struggling (with the Accused’s penis continually penetrating her anus) for about 30 seconds, the Victim finally managed to push the Accused off. The Victim then went to the toilet of the Accused’s flat to wash her anal cavity, experiencing a sharp pain as she did so, and she discovered that she was bleeding from her anal cavity. The Victim cried from the pain but composed herself before stepping back out to the bedroom to complete the sexual services as agreed, as the Accused wanted the Victim to “
When the Accused obtained the Victim’s sexual services, he knew that her sexual services were being made available to him on the basis that payment will be made for or in respect of them. However, the Accused intended that payment for the Victim’s sexual services will not be made.
After providing 2 hours’ worth of sexual services to the Accused, the Victim asked the Accused for payment of $1,500.00. The Victim did not ask for $2,000.00 as she acknowledged that she did not manage to successfully complete the anal-penile sexual intercourse with the Accused. However, the Accused replied that the social escort agent will contact her and transfer her the money within an hour. When questioned why he could not just pay the Victim directly, the Accused answered that he already made payment to the social escort agent. The Victim then left the Accused’s flat to return home. The Victim attempted to contact “D Angelz” on “Telegram” to ask for payment and she was instructed to provide her bank account number and to wait for an hour for payment. The Victim complied with the instructions but realised that her earlier “Telegram” chat history with “D Angelz” had been deleted. After still not receiving the payment after an hour, she texted “D Angelz” on “Telegram” again. Her messages were ignored. The Victim then tried to contact “@tempt_soul” on IG, but she was blocked by the user.
Desperate, and left with no other options, the Victim took another Grab private hire transport from her residence to the Accused’s flat and requested the Accused to contact the social escort agent for payment. The Accused lied to the Victim that he would contact the social escort agent on her behalf for the payment and asked her to leave. The Victim left after obtaining the Accused’s mobile phone number.
The next day in the morning of 12 August 2020, after still not receiving payment for her services, the Victim contacted the Accused on WhatsApp to ask for her payment. The Accused however accused the Victim of harassing him and challenged her to report him to the Police. The Victim lodged the Police report on the same day as she still did not receive payment for her services.
Accordingly, the Accused had obtained the sexual services of the Victim for himself dishonestly by deceiving her into believing that he was a sexual services agent and will deliver $1,500.00 to her in exchange for her providing him with 2 hours of sexual services, which the Victim would not have done so had she not been so deceived.
By virtue of the foregoing, the Accused has thereby committed an offence under section 420A(1) and punishable under section 420A(2) of the Penal Code.
Submissions on sentence Prosecution’s Submissions on Sentence The Prosecution submitted that the following would be the principal factual elements of a s 420A Penal Code offence involving a
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