SINGAPORE: A stranger who sexually assaulted a six-year-old girl while she played hide-and-seek at the void deck of a Housing Board block was sentenced to 11 years' jail on Monday (Oct 2).

Police solved the cold case from 2014 through DNA profiling after the offender, Lau Seng Kee, was arrested for an obscene act in front of another child last year.

His DNA matched with DNA taken from semen in the 2014 sexual assault, which had been stored in a database for eight years.

After being nabbed, Lau, now 60, admitted to police that he had previously masturbated in front of primary school girls in uniform.

He also admitted to six or seven instances when he went around looking specifically for "round-faced" young primary school girls, prosecutors said.

He pleaded guilty to one charge of aggravated sexual assault involving the six-year-old victim.

Two other charges were considered for sentencing - for sexual exploitation of the six-year-old on the same occasion in 2014, and for an obscene act committed in public in front of another young girl in 2022.

VICTIM SUFFERED "RECURRING THOUGHTS" ABOUT THE ASSAULT

Around noon on Feb 21, 2014, the six-year-old victim and her eight-year-old sister were at the void deck of a Housing and Development Board block.

The identity of the victim and the location of the offence are gagged by court order.

The sisters, who were accompanied by their maid, decided to play hide-and-seek. The victim was wearing her primary school physical education uniform at the time.

During the game, she saw Lau loitering at a staircase area in the void deck. She ignored him, but noticed that he was smiling at her from a distance.

Unable to find her sister, the victim went to search the staircase area. Lau beckoned to her to follow him and she did so, following him up a flight of stairs.

At the staircase landing, Lau turned to face the victim and suddenly exposed his private parts to her.

He made a suggestive comment to the victim and directed her to touch him and perform a sexual act. 

After the assault, Lau smiled at the victim and walked up the stairs. The girl went back down, where her sister asked where she had gone, and she told her sister what had happened.

The school bus then came and both sisters boarded it. Later that night, during dinner, the victim told her father what had happened and he lodged a police report.

During the assault, Lau's semen got onto the girl...