Court troubled by victim's conduct

SINGAPORE- Man jailed for underage sex.

Judge says: Court troubled by victim's conduct. He says minor had contributed to men facing the law.

Despite knowing that the girl was just 15 years old, he had kinky sex with her.

Their acts involved bondage, domination and spanking.

Ramos Lobatan Alan, a 26-year-old Mexican working here, was yesterday jailed 10 months for having sex with a minor.

The former associate consultant with the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore faced 12 charges, of which two were proceeded with. The other charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.

In sentencing Ramos, District Judge Low Wee Ping also had some harsh words for the victim.

He said the court was "troubled by the conduct of this minor who seems to be very misguided" and had contributed to men having to face the law.

Five men have been charged with having underage sex with the girl.

One of them, who had regular sex with her, has been sentenced. Another man, who had kinky sex, is awaiting sentencing after earlier pleading guilty before Judge Low.

Ramos had sex with the girl on four occasions between October and November 2012.

The acts came to light when a church friend told the girl's father that he had received sexually explicit photographs of her.

Her parents took her for a medical check-up at KK Women's and Children's Hospital and they made a police report on Dec 5 that year.

The court heard that the girl had created a profile on OkCupid, a dating and social networking website, in mid-2012 to make more friends.

Her profile showed she was 18 years old, the minimum age required for registration.

Ramos initiated contact with her online and they were soon chatting on WhatsApp.

After finding out that Ramos liked people to address him as "sir", she asked him if he had a fetish for BDSM (bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism).

When he said he did engage in it, she told him that she also had experience with BDSM and had been a "submissive" in a previous relationship.

She also revealed her real age to him. But the fact that she was underage did not deter Ramos, who suggested that he would be her new "dominant". She agreed.

On Oct 19, the girl went to Ramos' flat in Ang Mo Kio, undressed as directed and knelt on all fours on his bed.

BOUND & GAGGED

He bound her hands behind her back and her legs together with pieces of cloth. He also gagged her mouth with a towel.

Ramos then alternated between using a belt, a hair brush and his hands to beat her buttocks for about five minutes.

He performed sexual acts on her before untying her. They then had protected sex.

They remained in regular contact and met again at his place four days later to have BDSM sex.

Judge Low said: "One would say she went to the Internet to groom offenders like Mr Ramos, rather than the other way round.

"It is this court's view that juridically there must be a consideration given to this fact in sentencing those whom she had misrepresented her age as 18. She's at the brink of being 16."

He continued: "One can say precisely that this provision was intended to protect minors like this. But one wonders whether when this punishment was calibrated, if any concern was given to these sort of minors. I'm inclined to think that it is to protect very innocent minors."

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