SINGAPORE, July 28 — A 28-year-old former waiter has been sentenced to 25½ years in prison and 24 strokes of the cane after admitting to raping three girls, all aged 13 at the time, whom he had offered money for sex.
Edmund Tan Shi Hui, who was 24 to 25 years old when the offences took place, met the girls through online platforms and had penetrative sex with them on eight occasions spread across more than a year, paying up to S$500 (about RM1,650) each time, The Straits Times reported.
Handing down the sentence yesterday, Justice Andre Maniam dismissed a defence argument that the fact the abuse involved payment made Tan less culpable. The judge held the opposite view: that paying for sex with a minor is an aggravating factor, not a mitigating one, when it comes to statutory rape.
Tan pleaded guilty to six charges of statutory rape committed between March 2022 and July 2023. Another ten charges — four of statutory rape, three of sexual assault by penetration, and three of sexual penetration of a minor under 16 — were taken into account during sentencing.
The first victim had advertised in a Telegram group, claiming to be 16 to 18 years old and offering paid services. Tan contacted her privately, and they agreed on S$100. Their first encounter took place in March 2022 in a toilet at Kovan MRT station, after which Tan told her he knew she was younger than she’d claimed, but would not report her since he would land in worse trouble himself. He met her again for paid sex twice more, in December 2022 and April 2023.
The second victim was contacted through a video-conferencing app. Tan met her at his flat in September 2022, and again at a public toilet in Punggol later that month, during which she falsely told him she was 14. They met a third time in December 2022.
The third victim, contacted via the same platform in July 2023, revealed she was only 13 and still in school — after already sending Tan nude photos and agreeing to meet. That night, Tan paid her S$500 for sex at a block of flats’ staircase landing, an encounter interrupted mid-act by a passer-by before the pair moved to another landing to continue.
When Tan later asked to meet her again, she was busy — and days later, told him she had made a police report. He was arrested in August 2023, and investigators found his phone contained a detailed record of payments for sex with 17 different girls, three of whom were under 14.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Jordon Li had pushed for 23½ to 27½ years’ jail plus caning, describing Tan’s conduct as predatory and exploitative.
Defence lawyer William da Silva argued the sentence sought was excessive, noting Tan would spend nearly as long behind bars as he’d been alive, and proposed 14 years and 12 strokes instead. He pointed out that commercial sex with a minor under 18 carries a maximum seven-year sentence — far lower than rape’s 20-year maximum — arguing this showed lawmakers saw paid sex with minors as a lesser offence.
Maniam rejected this reasoning, noting that Singapore’s Parliament had specifically criminalised paid sex with anyone under 18 to protect minors, even though non-commercial sex involving 16- to 18-year-olds is not itself an offence there.
