The panel of judges in the Court of Second Instance (TSI) decided to immediately send an underage tutor to jail for sexually abusing four little girls, the Court of Final Appeal (TUI) said in a statement yesterday.
According to the statement, the offender started to work as a part-time tutor at a tutorial centre on October 5 last year. The statement pointed out that the offender touched the private parts of four female students, who were aged seven to eight at that time, when he was tutoring them. The statement said that one of the female students reported the matter to the tutorial centre.
Previous reports said that the part-time tutor was 17 years old when he was arrested. He admitted to the police that in October last year he had repeatedly touched girls’ private parts over their clothes.
The statement noted that according to Article 164-A of the Macau Penal Code, sexual harassment offenders face a prison term of up to one year. However, the statement said that according to Article 166 of the Penal Code, offenders who harass people under the age of 14 will face a prison term of up to three years. As a result, the Court of First Instance (TJB) sentenced the offender to a year and half behind bars, along with a two-year suspended sentence, adding that the offender needed to pay two of the four victims 10,000 and 12,000 patacas compensation respectively.
The Public Prosecutions Office (MP) disagreed with the sentence and appealed to the Court of Second Instance. The statement said that the TSI panel underlined that even though the offender was under the age of 18, a first-time lawbreaker, and admitted what he had done, the two-year probation period still could not deter him from committing such a crime again. The statement added that considering the public has been expressing anger and disgust about the case, the court decided to immediately imprison the offender for a year and half.
