AN 18-YEAR-OLD child molester and thief, who sexually assaulted three girls in Hougang, was yesterday sentenced to reformative training.
James Jerome Marius will also be disqualified from driving for a year after he completes his sentence.
A community court heard that on the night of Dec 4, 2012, Marius tailed an 11-year-old girl back to her Housing Board block in Hougang Avenue 8.
When she reached her block’s lift landing at about 8.50 pm, he asked her to follow him as he had something to tell her.
Afraid that he might harm her if she refused, she complied. Marius led her to the void deck of a nearby block.
He pulled her pants and panties down, although she squatted down in a bid to stop him.
He made her stand, touched her private parts and sexually assaulted her.
The girl shouted but Marius placed a hand over her mouth.
When she told him she wanted to leave, he asked her to hug him first. She then ran away to a carpark, where she asked a taxi driver for help and he called the police.
On July 20, 2013, Marius again tailed another girl going back home.
This time, he followed the 12-year-old into the lift at her block at Hougang Avenue 5 at about 4.45pm.
When she was about to exit the lift at her floor, he brushed his hand down from her chest area to her hip area.
She went home and told her mother about the incident.
Her father took her to make a police report three days later.
On Aug 26, 2014, Marius struck again. He was washing a car at a carpark in Hougang Central when he saw a nine-year-old walking home at about 5.30pm.
When she passed him, he asked her about her school and her uniform, before hugging her and touching the upper side of her inner thigh.
The girl’s mother went to look for Marius together with her daughter shortly after and the mother called the police .
On Nov 17 last year, Marius and two friends stole a motorcycle from an ITE College East carpark.
He rode the motorcycle around the carpark but the engine stalled shortly after.
He pushed the vehicle to nearby carpark and left it there.
On June 12 last year, he went into a store at Nex shopping mall, removed a soldering torch worth $29.70 from its packaging and walked out of the outlet with it.
He stole an Apple iPhone 4S on another occasion.
Reformative training is a strict regime in which young offenders are put behind bars for between 18 months and three years.
amirh@sph.com.sg
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