SINGAPORE: A former teacher was jailed for 13 months on Thursday (Aug 15) for possessing child abuse material and refusing to provide the police with passwords to some of his devices.
Eugene Quake, a 40-year-old Singaporean, pleaded guilty to one count each of possessing child abuse material and obstructing justice.
Another two charges of possessing and making obscene films were considered in sentencing.
A spokesperson from the Ministry of Education previously told CNA that Quake had been suspended since March 2023 and was no longer teaching in any school.
The court heard that Quake downloaded the messaging app Telegram in 2020 and realised there were many chat groups sharing homosexual pornography.
He joined several of them as he had an interest in such material, but some chat group members would also share child abuse material on occasion.
Quake said he had previously watched videos on these chat groups depicting adults raping babies.
Quake had set his Telegram settings to “auto download”, so the videos were automatically downloaded to his phone after he viewed them.
He also searched for pornography online using search terms like “boys”.
On Mar 15, 2023, the police raided Quake’s condominium unit after receiving information.
They arrested Quake and seized two mobile phones, a laptop and a portable drive.
Quake provided the passcode to only one of the phones, a black iPhone. The hard drive was not encrypted, and the police found 10 images containing child abuse material.
The youngest boys in the images appeared to be under the age of 10, court documents stated.
Quake admitted using the other phone – a white iPhone, which was his primary device – and his laptop, a MacBook, to view porn.
The police wanted to review the materials in these two devices, as they believed there was more child abuse material in them.
However, Quake refused to give the passcodes to the white iPhone and laptop, even after the police served him with a notice to provide assistance for the investigation and warned him that failure to comply may be an offence.
Because of Quake’s refusal, the police were unable to access the two devices.
SENTENCING ARGUMENTS
Deputy Public Prosecutor Sheldon Lim asked for a total sentence of between 14 and 18 months’ jail.
He said Quake’s duration of offending was long – almost three years – and he viewed “incredibly depraved content – videos of adults raping babies and infants”.
The 10 child abuse images Quake possessed captured the abuse of 13 children, who were assessed to be between 10 and 14.
Of the 10 images, eight feature “extremely disturbing content”, said Mr Lim.
Quake attended court with two men. He looked down during the hearing and appeared embarrassed, and initially did not want to say anything further on top of his two-page written mitigation plea.
However, when questioned by the judge, Quake said he was not represented because he just wanted to “move on with whatever sentence” was given.
He later added: “I’m not a lawyer but I would put it as low harm and low culpability.”
Quake then claimed he had forgotten the passcode to his white iPhone, and that if he had tried unsuccessfully once more, it would be locked.
He said the reason he did not want to give the password to his laptop was that there were “other sensitive things” inside relating to his partner, and he did not want to pull the man into the case.
He added that whatever information was in the laptop would already be downloaded to the hard drive, which the police had access to.
In response, the prosecutor said the white iPhone was used by Quake for daily communication, casting doubt on how he could have forgotten the passcode.
He added that Quake should have just given the laptop password to the police if the contents were already on the hard drive.
In sentencing, District Judge Koo Zhi Xuan said the courts have to impose a sentence which aids in the efforts to stifle demand for child abuse materials.
He agreed that the duration of offending was quite long, spanning close to three years.
However, he noted that the 10 images, though vile, were not videos and were not as depraved and harmful as the content in another case used for comparison.
Judge Koo said the sentence was necessary to send a clear signal that those suspected of being in possession of child sex materials cannot expect to be let off easily if they refuse to operate with the authorities and prevent the full scale of offences from coming to light.