Story By: Simon Glover, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Asia Wire Report

A paedophile piano teacher has admitted to molesting a five-year-old girl after telling her he was putting his hand inside her underwear because he needed to correct her posture.

The 21-year-old man, who cannot be named, was originally charged with sexually assaulting the child in the city island state of Singapore.

But he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of molesting the child by squeezing her private parts claiming he needed to improve her posture at the piano during a lesson in November 2016. 

He then molested her while telling her to squeeze her thighs tightly together, saying: “Remember this”, the court heard.

The child said she was in pain and said “ouch” several times, asking the man to stop. He apologised each time, but did not remove his hand from inside her undergarments.

After the class, the girl’s grandfather came to pick her up, but she did not tell him what happened as “grandpa is a boy”.

Her mother found out about the incident when she checked on the child later and found her crying from the pain she felt while trying to urinate.

She then told her mother what happened and her father called the police, who arrested the piano teacher.

A medical report found the girl had a scratch on her private parts and a small abrasion, but her hymen was intact.

After the incident, the child kept asking her mother if “it would always hurt”, and whether her injuries would get better. 

She also stopped playing the piano on her own and had several episodes of bed-wetting.

The piano teacher worked as a part-time teacher at the studio which cannot be named as part of a gagging order to protect the girl’s identity.

The man had previously taken lessons from the studio owner since 2013, completing his piano diploma two years later.

The girl was the youngest of the seven students he taught and the only girl he taught individually in a small room on the second floor of the studio, behind a closed door.

The piano teacher, who could be jailed for up to five years, fined, caned or any combination of the three punishments, will be sentenced at a later date.