An Indian businessman was sentenced on Friday to seven months in jail with three strokes of the cane for molesting a private nurse employed to look after his cancer-stricken wife.
District Judge Mathew Joseph chided Indian national Pillai Shyam Kumar Sadashivan, 47, and called his actions "abhorrent and repugnant", the Strait Times reported.
"The victim was a professional nurse looking after your sick wife... (not to) provide non-nursing services, contrary to what you expected. This is Singapore. We have different standards here," the judge said.
Pillai, who runs a steel trading company in Dubai, initially claimed trial to his offences but decided to plead guilty on the first day of the hearing in August.
He admitted to molesting the Singaporean nurse last year. A second count of insulting the woman's modesty was taken into consideration during sentencing.
Pillai had come to Singapore with his wife to seek medical treatment, the report said.
He committed the offence in his rented apartment near Kent Ridge Park on December 14 last year, just three days after the private nurse started working for the couple.
During the incident, Pillai's wife was asleep in her bedroom with the door closed when he invited the nurse to sit with him in the living room.
"The accused steered the conversation towards sexual matters. The accused stated that he had not had sexual intercourse with his wife for the past months and claimed that the girls in Dubai provide extra services. He asked the victim if Singaporean girls were the same," Deputy Public Prosecutor Gail Wong said.
"The victim understood that the accused was referring to sexual contact and replied that she was a professional nurse and did not do such things."
"Pillai then asked the nurse to lift her top. He molested her after she declined."
The nurse continued to take care of Pillai's ailing wife but she later alerted the police about her ordeal and stopped going to his home.
Pillai is now out on SGD 15,000 bail and will surrender himself at the State Courts on October 16 to serve his sentence.
For molesting the nurse, he could have been jailed for up to two years and fined or caned.
