A Surrey man has been sentenced to house arrest after he was busted by Facebook security for inappropriate sexual chat with a 13-year-old girl.
Manrick Singh, 27, a rising cricket star who used to play with the Malaysian national cricket team as well as the West Vancouver Cricket Club, was handed a 90-day conditional sentence order - including a term of house arrest - in a North Vancouver courtroom April 16 after pleading guilty to a charge of Internet luring. He will also serve 18 months probation.
His younger brother -Tekbindepal Bhar, 20 - was put on probation and handed a suspended sentence after pleading guilty to sexual assault on the same girl.
Singh exchanged explicit messages with the girl and received graphic photographs from her over a six-week period in 2012, starting when he was 24 and she was 13.
He was arrested after a Facebook security monitoring team noticed the content of the messages and photos and contacted child protection services. Authorities then alerted the RCMP, who executed a search warrant at Singh's home in Surrey and seized his computer.
According to information presented during the sentencing hearing, the sexual chat occurred after the girl - who Crown counsel Lindsay Heron said had low self-esteem and was seeking attention - sent out graphic photos of herself and offers of sex to a number of men.
During the sexual chats with Singh, at one point the girl asked him, "I'm almost 14. Is this illegal?" "Yes it is. LOL," Singh replied. "Don't let anybody find out about this."
Facebook later deactivated Singh's account. Singh's lawyer Michael Shapray said he's never heard of a case where Facebook has flagged sexual chat sessions.
Shapray said he never imagined "a company with a billion users" would have an algorithm that could track the content of users' messages so specifically.
Shapray said Singh is deeply remorseful. "He is so mad at himself for not thinking and abandoning all common sense," said Shapray. "Things became stupid. It's something he let himself fall into."
Shapray added the girl had tried to persuade Singh to meet in person a number of times but he refused. He added Singh never asked her to send photos to him.
Since the court case became public, Singh's reputation has been "wrecked and destroyed," he added.
Singh acknowledges he "screwed up badly" but also feels he was manipulated and set up by the girl, the lawyer said.
Singh's younger brother Bhar did have sexual contact with the girl, when they met in a forested area of West Vancouver that same summer after the girl told him she wanted to make out with him.
The sexual contact was consensual and was stopped by Bhar after 10 or 15 minutes. That, however, is no excuse, said Heron. "The law that says you can't have these relationships with someone under the age of 16 is to protect young people who have no judgment, little experience and make bad choices," she said.
Shapray said his client is extremely remorseful, later telling authorities, "I should never have gone into the forest.. .. I should have known better. I don't know why I did it - me being a guy and me being an idiot."
Psychological assessments pointed to Bhar as a very low risk to re-offend.
Judge Steven Merrick handed Bhar a suspended sentence - meaning he will still have a criminal record as a sex offender - and put him on 12 months' probation with conditions to perform 50 hours of community work service.
Merrick said he considered Bhar's actions to be "at the low end" of such offences but added, "Children are vulnerable and need to be protected from adults who would take advantage of them."
The judge added Bhar knew his behaviour was wrong.
Both Singh and Bhar have also been placed on the national sexual offender registry for 10 years.
