Serial Sexual Predator Who Preyed on Kids Convicted for a Fourth Time

Preventive Detention Sought for Man Who Exploited Eight Children on 60 Occasions

- Selina Lum

A serial sexual predator who spent one-third of his adult life in prison for preying on children since 1999 has been convicted for the fourth time.

On Aug 11, Terence Thaver, 60, who was last released from prison in March 2021, pleaded guilty to three charges involving two victims.

He admitted to molesting an eight-year-old boy who lived in the same neighborhood that he did in September 2023.

The other victim is a 26-year-old man who was sexually assaulted in 2007 when he was nine years old. He reported the incidents to the police in 2021.

Thaver pleaded guilty to one charge of outrage of modesty over the 2023 offenses and two charges of unnatural sex over the 2007 offenses.

Three other charges will be taken into consideration when he is sentenced at a later date.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Andre Chong argued that Thaver's high risk of reoffending and his similar antecedents warranted a sentence of at least 18 years' preventive detention.

DPP Chong said if Thaver is found unsuitable for preventive detention, he should be sentenced to a jail term of 21 to 25 years, plus three months in lieu of caning, given that he cannot be caned as he is older than 50.