School basketball coach sexually abused teen boys under his charge in his flat and public toilets

Selina Lum
The Straits Times
May 7, 2024

A basketball coach for a secondary school and a junior college exploited four students under his charge and sexually abused the teenage boys, who were then between 13 and 16 years old.

The man took one victim back to his flat on the pretext of conducting “puberty checks”.

He asked another for video calls with the aim of seeing the boy in the nude.

Whenever the victim refused, the man suggested he would be dropped from the school team, knowing that the boy was hoping to enrol in junior college through the Direct School Admission scheme based on his sporting talent.

On May 7, the 42-year-old man was sentenced to 19 years’ jail and 24 strokes of the cane by the High Court.

He had pleaded guilty on March 18 to four counts of sexual penetration of a minor.

Another 25 charges, for various sexual offences committed between late 2016 and March 2020, were taken into consideration.

The man cannot be named owing to a gag order to protect the identities of the victims, who are now between 19 and 21 years old.

He had been a full-time basketball coach registered with the Ministry of Education since 2012.

In 2016, he took over as head coach of the team at an all-boys secondary school. He also coached the school team at a junior college.

As an external coach, he was not an employee of the schools, but was under contract with the institutions.

Three of the victims were members of the secondary school team, and the fourth victim was on the junior college team.

The man often had meals with his students before or after basketball training.

In March 2018, after training, the man asked the first victim, then 13, to go to his Housing Board flat to check on his “puberty stage”. 

The boy, who had previously gone to the flat for a similar check, agreed to go to the flat, but declined to be checked.  

At the flat, the man performed a sexual act on the boy in the bedroom and told the boy to perform oral sex on him.

The boy did not tell anyone about the incident, and left the basketball team in August 2018.

The coach tried to get him to change his mind, but the boy was adamant about his decision.

He also cut off contact with the man.

The man asked the second victim for video calls so that the boy could show the man his genitals.

On March 2, 2020, the man asked the victim, who was then 14, and two other students to join him for lunch at a shopping mall.

The boy agreed as he did not want to get into trouble with his coach.

After lunch, the man asked the boy if he wanted to try “that thing again”.

The boy knew he was referring to a sexual act that the man had previously performed on him.

The man then took the boy to a toilet cubicle and performed oral sex on the victim.

The third victim joined the secondary school team in 2018.

He lived near the coach, and they would often take public transport together back to their respective homes.

On March 14, 2020, the man performed oral sex on the boy, who was then 16, in a toilet cubicle in the school.

The fourth victim – the junior college student – was part of the secondary school team for four years, and looked up to the coach for imparting to him basketball and life skills.

On April 5, 2020, after they had lunch together, the man took the boy, who was then 16, to a public toilet and performed oral sex on the victim.

The man was arrested on April 22, 2020, after the second victim confided to his classmate that he had been sexually abused by his coach.

The school authorities made a police report, and the man’s offences against the three other boys were revealed during further investigations.