Malaysian paedophile caught in Singapore

PETALING JAYA - A 31 year-old Ma­­laysian engineer pleaded guilty in a Singapore court to sexually preying on 31 boys aged between 11 and 15 in a case the prosecution described as the worst of its kind in the island republic.

Yap Weng Wah pleaded guilty on Friday to 12 charges of sexual penetration of a minor, The Straits Times reported.

Another 64 charges - 63 for sexual penetration of a minor and one for procuring a child to commit an indecent act - will be taken into consideration during sentencing.

Yap, a quality assurance engineer who came to work in Singapore in 2009, befriended the boys on Facebook using different personas, chatted with them on the social networking site and later persuaded them to meet him.

Between November 2009 and June 2012, he persuaded 30 of the boys into consenting to engage in sexual acts with him at places such as his flat, toilet cubicles in shopping centres and swimming complexes, hotel rooms and a public park.

Yap also recorded the acts on his mobile phone. He stored the footage in his laptop, meticulously catalogued in folders indicating each boy's name, age and year they met.

After their first sexual encounter with Yap, some of the victims continued to meet him and engage in sexual acts with him, either because they enjoyed his company as a friend, were worried he may spread the footage or were themselves sexually curious.

Police who raided his home after one of the victims made a report found more than 2,000 video clips on his laptop.

The case was adjourned for further arguments on the appropriate sentence to be imposed.

DPP David Khoo sought at least 30 years' jail and 24 strokes of the cane.

Yap's two younger siblings and mother live in Ipoh while his father moved to New Zealand when he was eight years old.

His lawyer Daniel Koh said in his plea for leniency that when Yap was 12 years old, he had a nine-month sexual relationship with a male teacher. Due to a lack of a father figure, he thought these were acts of intimacy and love, he said.