Judge: Pimp is depraved, callous and outright cruel

Judge: Pimp is depraved, callous and outright cruel

Throughout his time in court, pimp Tang Huisheng had been making about-turns and disputing the facts of the case against him, even after he pleaded guilty.

On Thursday, after he was sentenced to six years in jail, he still wanted to have the final say, even.

But District Judge Shaiffudin Saruwan was having none of it and said the case was closed.

There was a tense moment of silence as the judge left the courtroom. Then Tang shouted in Mandarin before he was led away: "You are being very unfair to me." In May, the Chinese national brought a 17-year-old girl from China to Singapore to work as a prostitute.

He forced her to have sex about 150 times with about 100 men in the 15 days she was here.

She was made to service an average of 10 clients a day, a figure the judge called "mind-numbing". The pimp kept all her earnings of about $9,000.

When she was arrested on June 1, he went to the Marina Bay Sands casino where he lost more than $18,000.

Heartrending

As some of the men the underage girl had serviced were hauled to court, her heartrending story emerged.

After her father died, she was ridden with debts and tricked into meeting Tang in Zhuhai, China, where he drugged and raped her, made her his sex slave and confined her to a room.

Out of desperation and in a bid to escape, she jumped out of a fifth-storey window, but was caught and beaten by Tang and his sister.

He initially claimed trial to seven charges, including one each of bringing the girl here to be a prostitute and living off her immoral earnings.

But at the last minute, he decided to plead guilty. Then, just before he was to be sentenced, he disputed some facts, resulting in a special hearing that saw the girl testify in a closed-door session last week.

On Monday, Tang took the stand and claimed that he and the girl were lovers, and that he provided for her during the few months that she stayed with him.

During sentencing on Thursday, Judge Shaiffudin said Tang had exploited the minor to a "staggering degree" and that he was callous and audacious in thinking he still had time to gamble with her hard-earned money before making his escape.

In a strongly worded statement, the judge said Tang's perverseness and "outright cruelty" was disgusting.

"The accused's depravity, callousness and outright cruelty are viewed with abhorrence and repulsion.

"He had corrupted, coerced and victimised the minor," he said.

lawsm@sph.com.sg


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