SINGAPORE, Aug 2 — An estate cleaner with a town council molested a 14-year-old student at the void deck of a public housing block shortly after she struck up a conversation with him.

Mir Abdul Khalek, 41, a Bangladeshi, was sentenced to 10 months’ jail and two strokes of the cane yesterday, after pleading guilty to assault with intent to outrage modesty.

The girl, who is now 15 years old, cannot be named by a court order.

Mir’s jail term will be backdated to February 21 this year when he was first remanded.

What happened

At about 2pm on September 20 last year, the teenager had finished school and was to meet her friends at Limbang Shopping Centre in Chua Chu Kang. She was a Secondary 2 student then.

Being early for the meeting, she decided to go to a public housing block opposite the shopping centre and was walking at its void deck when she noticed Mir lying on the floor.

He was taking a break and she decided to strike up a friendly conversation with him while waiting to meet her friends.

Mir sat up on the floor, cross-legged, while the girl stood facing him, bending over slightly.

She asked him how it was like to be a migrant worker and if he would be returning to his home country.

In response, Mir said that he was tired, but could not return home anytime soon since he needed to earn an income.

He in turn asked her how life was for her and she told him that she was "stressed out” due to school and relationship matters.

Mir then gestured to her to sit beside him and she did so.

Patting the top left side of his chest and then the right side with his hand, Mir uttered the words: "Heart hurt”.

The girl thought that he was asking if she was emotionally hurting and said: "Yes”.

Suddenly, Mir reached out to squeeze her chest on the left and right side over her school T-shirt.

Shocked by this, the girl shouted at him not to do so.

She also told Mir that he could get arrested for this and that she did not like what he did.

She then left quickly and walked towards Limbang Shopping Centre.

At about 3pm, she ran into a schoolmate at the mall. Still in shock, she told her schoolmate what had happened.

After her schoolmate advised her to inform her parents, she called her father on the phone.

He then asked her to make a police report with her mother and the pair did so shortly after that.

Mir was arrested that evening.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Lynda Lee sought a jail term of between 10 and 12 months, as well as caning — with the number of strokes left to the court’s discretion.

She said that Mir had "exploited the victim’s naivete” and took advantage of her kind gesture of making friendly conversation to molest her.

Noting also the girl’s age, DPP Lee added: "The younger the victim, the more vulnerable, and the more aggravating the offence.”

For committing assault with intent to outrage modesty, Mir could have been jailed for up to three years, fined or caned, or be given any combination of these punishments. — TODAY