SINGAPORE – A married man who went online and specifically searched for sexually explicit material involving children was later found with 304 videos of such content.

On November 4, Mohamad Fadli Kamaral Jaman, 36, was sentenced to two years and one month in prison and four strokes of the cane after pleading guilty to one charge of possessing child abuse material.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Benjamin Low told the court that in 2022, Fadli was browsing pornographic websites when he came across a video of a child engaging in sexual activity with an adult.

Soon after, he used a file-sharing program to search for “pre-teen” material and downloaded it to a hard drive to view.

Without disclosing details, the prosecutor said that officers from the Special Crime Section of the Criminal Investigation Department later received information about Fadli’s crime and searched his home on February 20, 2023.

DPP Low added: “The accused was later contacted by his wife… who informed him that there were police at their home and asked the accused to return home as a matter of urgency.”

He arrived home and was arrested after admitting to police that he had downloaded the sexually explicit material involving children.

It was later discovered that his computer and hard drive contained 304 videos featuring such content.

State Minister of Internal Affairs Sun Xueling said in September that as of 2020, there was approximately 140 police investigations into cases involving child sexual abuse material.

The offense of possessing such material came into effect in January 2020. Offenders face a mandatory prison sentence of up to five years and can also be fined or caned.

Conformable figures provided by Singapore’s judiciary, the number of cases has increased since 2020. There was one case that year, but none in 2021.

It rose to five cases in 2022, then seven in 2023.