Jail for recalcitrant offender who tried to obtain indecent acts from multiple underage boys
Source: The Straits Times
Author: Shaffiq Alkhatib
SINGAPORE - A man has been sent to jail after he continued reoffending despite being ordered to undergo probation and reformative training in 2019 over crimes, including sex-related ones involving minors.
The prosecution said that recalcitrant offender Marcus Lim Jia Long's latest crimes involved five underage boys whom he exploited.
He also committed a range of other offences including driving without a valid licence and instigating a 19-year-old male friend to perform a rash act.
On May 21, Lim, 24 was sentenced to 13 months and 10 weeks' jail, and ordered to pay a fine of $1,200.
He was also disqualified from holding or obtaining all classes of driving licences for a period of 30 months from his release date.
He had pleaded guilty to 13 charges including multiple ones under the Children and Young Persons Act. Seventeen other charges were considered during sentencing.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Stacey Anne Fernandez said that Lim was initially sentenced to a probation of two years and three months on Feb 1, 2019, for offences involving the exploitation of young persons.
She did not disclose details about these crimes.
Some time before July 4, 2019, he got to know a 14-year-old boy through dating app Grindr.
Lim then began chatting with the minor, identified in court documents as A1.
Lim was still serving his probation on July 4, 2019, when he asked the boy if they could meet so that the minor could perform various indecent acts.
Lim also tried to obtain pictures of the teenager's private parts.
Around the same time, Lim committed a similar offence involving a second 14-year-old boy, identified as A2, whom he had also met on Grindr.
Both A1 and A2 had told him their ages but he did not meet them in the end.
Lim's cousin later uncovered explicit messages which Lim had exchanged with the minors and alerted the police on July 17, 2019.
His probation was revoked and he was ordered to undergo reformative training for at least a year from Sept 4, 2019.
Young offenders ordered to undergo reformative training are detained in a centre to observe a strict regimen that can include foot drills and counselling.
Lim still did not learn his lesson and around October 2022, got to know a 15-year-old boy through mutual friends.
On Nov 11, 2022, the teenager, identified as A3, started staying over at Lim's home which the offender shared with his mother. The boy was reported as a missing person two days later.
Lim and the boy were at home on Dec 5, 2022, when he committed an indecent act on the minor. The boy's whereabouts were traced later that day before both he and Lim were taken to the Bedok Police Division Headquarters.
Court documents did not disclose what happened next but Lim got to know a second 15-year-old boy, identified as A4, through a mutual friend in April 2023.
The following month, A4 told Lim that he wanted to have sex and the offender agreed to the request.
A4's mother later told a social worker at a family service centre that her son had been close with a man who turned out to be Lim. The mother had also found condoms in her son's room.
In an unrelated case, Lim was with a group of friends, including a 19-year-old youth, in a room on the 40th floor of the Marina Bay Sands hotel at around 12.30am on Jan 29, 2022, when he offered $10 to anyone who dared to throw a plastic water bottle from the balcony to the ground floor.
The teenager who agreed threw a half-filled bottle of water and it landed behind a car.
He performed another a similar stunt soon after when Lim offered more cash. The teenager did not see where the bottle landed as it was blown away.
Separately, Lim did not have a valid licence when he drove cars on seven occasions between May 14, 2022, and May 2, 2023.
He had driven at places including Holland Road and Marina Coastal Expressway.