SINGAPORE, Feb 26 — His teenage students had asked him to coach them in their studies, but Yeo Chang Yong instead had sex with one of the minors and committed obscene acts on the other.
Yesterday, a district judge slammed the 30-year-old teacher’s conduct as “nothing short of deplorable” and sentenced him to 26 months’ jail.
District Judge Wong Choon Ning also said Yeo had broken a sacred trust placed upon him with his acts, noting that there are potential dangers for the children, given their immaturity.
The court heard that Yeo became acquainted with the two girls when he was posted to their school as a contract teacher in 2009.
He left the following year to complete his postgraduate diploma at the National Institute of Education and was posted back to the school in June 2011 after graduating.
However, between August 2010 and January 2011, when the two girls, aged 15 and 14 then, asked Yeo to help them with their studies, he took advantage of them.
Yeo had sex with the older girl and committed obscene acts with the younger one, including kissing and hugging her.
In its submissions, the prosecution urged the court to impose a sentence of at least 21 months because Yeo had abused his position.
As a teacher, he had “unbridled access to a pool of immature, naive and impressionable young girls”, prosecutors said.
“The evidence shows that he clearly had no qualms or reservations about taking advantage of the easy opportunity which presented itself to him, exploiting it fully to gratify his lust.”
The age gap between him and the two students were aggravating factors and Yeo also had a “systematic pattern of offending”, given that he had six other offences taken into consideration.
However, the defence argued that Yeo was no longer a teacher at the school when he was going out with the 15-year-old girl and also contended that the sexual acts were consensual.
Yeo has been suffering from depression since the investigations began and he regretted his “bad judgement calls” immensely, his lawyer said. — Today
