By Elena Chong

A 23-YEAR-OLD man was fined $6,000 on Tuesday for having sex with a 15-year-old girl he met over a popular internet chatline.

Pradip Kumar Pathak pleaded guilty to the offence at Siloso Beach in Sentosa in early April last year.

A district court heard that the two met over the Alamak chat in late 2006.

She told him she was 17.

Soon they became steady and she later told him that she was only 15.

In early April last year, they went to the Siloso Beach and had consensual sex.

The following month, the victim's mother suspected that the victim was pregnant and accompanied her to a polyclinic. The pregnancy test was positive and the girl admitted that Pathak was the father.

The girl's father confronted Pathak who begged for mercy and promised to marry her once she turned 18.

The girl aborted the baby when she was about nine weeks' pregnant.

Pathak was arrested on Jan 17 after the victim's father made a report.

He could have been jailed for up to five years and fined up to $10,000 for having sex with a girl below 16.