SINGAPORE: A man who was first exposed to pornography when he was a teen, via platforms such as online forum Sammyboy, was jailed for 18 months on Wednesday (July 24) for downloading child porn and voyeuristic material.
Chong Xuan Ming, 38, an accountant, had almost 4,000 pictures and videos of child sexual abuse material on his computer, with some depicting torture and physical abuse.
The married man pleaded guilty to one count of possessing child abuse material and another count of possessing voyeuristic images and recordings. Another charge of possessing obscene films was taken into consideration for sentencing.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Lim Ying Min told the court that Chong first started watching such videos when he was around 15 to 16 years old, and would regularly download them.
One of the websites he frequented was the online forum Sammyboy, where users posted links he could use to download these material.
The Sammyboy forum has been linked to multiple sex-related criminal cases, including the infamous wife-sharing case, and a Telegram chat group linked to the forum that circulated obscene photos and videos of women.
On Oct 6, 2021, officers from the Specialised Crime Branch of the Criminal Investigation Department raided Chong’s home upon receiving information that he possessed child abuse materials. Court documents did not state how the police received the tip-off.
They found child abuse materials, voyeuristic content and obscene films on his computer and arrested him.
He had created three e-mail accounts – each linked to separate cloud storage accounts – to download pornographic material. This was to circumvent the download limit of each cloud storage account, DPP Lim said.
Chong possessed 807 photos and 3,149 videos of child sexual abuse material after he came across the content while browsing through pornographic materials he had downloaded.
His lawyer S. S. Dhillon said he had no intention to seek out child abuse materials, and had “inadvertently downloaded” them when he downloaded a large quantity of files. But DPP Lim said Chong had viewed some of the videos, and admitted that he did not see the need to delete them.
Chong was also found with 172 photos and 2,165 videos of a voyeuristic nature, including videos of women showering, which he had downloaded via the Sammyboy forum and Telegram.
Dhillon said his client did not share or distribute the child abuse material to others, and was not aware of how the materials were produced, describing Chong as “merely a consumer”.
Chong’s wife, with whom he has a two-year-old son, also wrote a letter in mitigation vouching for his conduct and pleading for leniency.
In handing down the sentence, District Judge Wong Peck said she considered the fact that Chong had pleaded guilty and was a first-time offender. For possessing child abuse material, Chong could have been jailed for up to five years, fined or caned.
He could also have been jailed for up to two years and fined for possessing voyeuristic content. – The Straits Times/ANN
