A 34 years old software engineer was jailed for five days on Thursday (2 Jan) in a case of outrage of modesty after the judge rejected his earlier guilty plea–claiming the act was part of his culture and denying the intention of commit crime.
Meesala Siva Prasad, an Indian national who resides in Singapore, first asked a 24 years old woman for the MRT direction and offered her money to go hotel with him.
Meesala had those requests before kissing the victim’s hands.
The Court heard, on 27 Jun 2019, at about 10.50pm, Meesala reached out the victim, asking her how to get to the North East Line.
The victim then allowed him to follow her there as she was also walking towards the train at Dhoby Ghaut MRT station.
“Along the way, the accused told the victim that he was looking for girls and the victim asked what type of girls he was looking for,” Deputy Public Prosecutor Jotham Tay said in response to the media.
The prosecutor added that the victim refused when Meesala asked her if she would like to go to Hotel 81.
Shortly after boarded the same train, he took out his wallet and offered $100 to the victim, asking her to spend the night with him.
Meesala was rejected by the victim, still took her hand and kissed it.
The prosecutor said the victim was shocked and disgusted by this gesture and did not know how to react.
During their conversation, the victim had given out her number to Meesala due to fear and he called her number to confirm that it was accurate before got off the train at Little India station.
The judge backdated the jail term of Meesala to the date of his remand on 19 Dec 2019.
Meesala wrote to the judge in mitigation, told that he had lost his job because of the offense and had two young daughters and a wife to take care of, reported in Channel News Asia.
He pleaded for leniency and said that this was a big lesson in his life.
Last year, due to excellent grades, a 23 years old student from National University of Singapore (NUS) was sentenced to 21 months of supervised probation in September for molesting a woman at Serangoon MRT station. This was hotly debated among the netizens for a lenient sentence to be given to the offender.
Under section 354 of the Penal Code, the maximum punishment for assaulting or using criminal force to any person, intending to outrage the modesty of a person is up to two years’ jail, or with a fine or with caning, or with any combination of such punishments.
