'Jilted' lecturer sent nude pics of student-lover to her parents

'Jilted' lecturer sent nude pics of student-lover to her parents

SINGAPORE - The elderly man who suffers from Alzheimer's had the shock of his life when he opened the mail last year.

He was looking at obscene photos taken of his then 23-year-old daughter.

And the man who sent it claimed to be the gay, HIV-infected ex-lover of his daughter's boyfriend.

There were also lewd descriptions of his daughter, insinuating that she was promiscuous, among other allegations.

Unable to accept what he had just seen and read, the father, now 71, broke down in tears.

The police were called.

On Wednesday, Low Peng Hu, 49, the girl's former lecturer, was jailed three weeks for sending the obscene photos to her parents.

Low had started out being a concerned lecturer and ended up having an affair with the former student, even though they did not have full sexual intercourse.

When she found a new boyfriend and told him to get out of her life, he became the scorned lover, not just getting mad but wanting to exact some form of revenge.

He then sent the naked pictures to her school and her parents.

It had started innocently enough. Low used to teach the girl at a school in the east until she graduated in March 2009, when she was 20.

Then 46 and married with a teenage daughter, Low had been a teacher-adviser for the girl.

We are not naming the school and the victim as there is a court gag order protecting her identity.

In October 2009, the girl asked Low and another former lecturer for help on a project she was working on at her new school.

The two started spending a lot of time together, meeting almost every day and going out for meals and movies.

Went to hotels

He started an intimate relationship with her - even though she is 26 years his junior - going to hotel rooms where they had oral sex.

Low also took nude pictures of the girl, including close-ups of her nether regions.

But the relationship started to cool in August last year.

And when the girl told Low about her new boyfriend later that month, he scolded her for cheating and betraying him.

He asked her to leave the new guy and to stay with him, but she refused.

She ignored his calls and deleted him as a friend on Facebook.

Undeterred, Low sent an e-mail to the girl's new boyfriend asking him to stay away and to concentrate on his studies instead. It is not known if he replied to Low's e-mail.

Some time in October, Low waited at the girl's house for her to return.

When he saw her, he scolded her again.

He also asked her to return all the gifts he had bought her, along with the money he had spent on her - he claimed he had showered her with gifts over the three years.

That was when she told Low to get out of her life.

Feeling he had been used, he decided to take revenge by sending pictures of her naked to her school's head in early November 2012. The photos were sent by post.

He claimed the girl and her boyfriend were making a pornographic game in the computer lab.

He also posted the letter to the girl's parents with nine photos, including seven that showed various parts of the girl's naked body and private parts.

Lurid captions accompanied the pictures, but they are too obscene to print here.

He also claimed their daughter had slept with many men.

He made the HIV claim and warned that their daughter might get the disease too.

Among other things, he also listed "defects" the girl was said to have, including a "super small ear, like some alien in some games", elderly parents, facial hair and dry lips.

He also said in the letter that her boyfriend was out to cheat her and get her pregnant, then inherit her parents' money and properties.

In his mitigation submitted earlier to the court, Low's lawyer Shashi Nathan said his client had bought many gifts for the girl including a $5,000 laptop, digital cameras, an iPod, electronic games, and clothes.

Mr Nathan said that Low and the girl had never had sexual intercourse as he was being respectful towards her.

So when she told him she had a new boyfriend, Low realised that she had been using him all this time, leading him to commit the offences.

Callous

But in his sentencing submissions, Deputy Public Prosecutor Nicholas Khoo argued that Low wanted the victim to suffer and had callously disregarded the wreckage he was leaving in his wake to take revenge against the girl.

He said: "A woman's reputation, once tarnished, is gone forever and can never be repaired."

In sentencing, District Judge Christopher Goh had harsh words for the bespectacled man, who kept his head bowed through most of the proceedings.

Calling him "despicable and cowardly" for hiding behind a veneer, judge Goh said that Low had caused anguish to the victim's parents and had insulted her with the degrading captions he had attached.

"Very often, when couples are together, intimate pictures of each other are taken in a private setting and stored on various devices with no regard for what happens when the relationship is over," the judge said.

lawsm@sph.com.sg


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