The boy's father reported the matter to the police last February when he learnt that his son had engaged in sexual activities.Ĭourt documents showed that before they met, Aslam had asked the victim for his age and the latter claimed he was 17. The court heard that some time in mid-January last year, Aslam sent the victim a message via the app requesting sex.Īfter an exchange of messages discussing the price for the act, it was agreed that Aslam would pay the boy, who cannot be named due to a gag order, $130. On Friday (July 26), the former horse racing jockey with the Singapore Turf Club was jailed for 18 months for engaging in a sexual act with a person under the age of 14. Families with kids also come to visit the beach.He looked too small and young to be a 17-year-old but Malik Erasmus Aslam, now 41, did little to verify his age before he proceeded to have sex with the boy he had met on gay dating mobile application Grindr.Īslam also admitted to making an obscene film of their sex act when they met a second time.
Kicksee added that many of the people are in their 20s. Though the beach was sparsely populated Thursday as clouds rolled in from the northwest, Wevers said that on weekends there can be as many as 1,000 people at Hanlan’s Point, many of them stripped down on the clothing-optional side. “He’d look up at the sky and yell for pizza,” said Kicksee with a laugh. “He thought he was like a wizard or something,” said Sweeney, describing how Pizza Guy would ask them if they were hungry, then run into the lake, hold out his hands and holler at the heavens in a goofy attempt to conjure up some pizza. He stood with a hand on his hip as he asked Wevers about the lifeguard’s surf board, which he uses to get out in the water when the waves get big.Īnother memorable character is the Pizza Guy. One of them approached the lifeguards moments later, a middle-aged man wearing nothing but a fanny pack and black Indiana Jones-style hat. Essentially, he said, it’s “just a bunch of older guys who like to get nude,” glancing over at the grey-haired sunbathers lying on towels in the nearby sand. A recurring cast of characters that frequent the nude beach, and often approach their lifeguard tower to chat. It’s still a serious gig, where vigilance is job number one.įor starters, “you get the regulars,” said Wevers. The three lifeguards said working the nude beach isn’t all that different from watching over any other shore. It serves as a perch from which the guards scan their territory, holler through their megaphone and scamper out into the waves on their surf board or wooden paddle boat, something they do every time a beachgoer ventures into the lake. The nexus of their workspace is a steel tower that’s about three metres high. Like Sweeney, they don’t mind watching over the island beach partitioned by a string of thin stakes in the sand that serves as a firm borderline between the realm of the possibly naked and the definitely clothed. It’s really just people relaxing and trying to enjoy their day.”Īlongside Sweeney are Jacki Kicksee and Joe Wevers, each clad in red windbreakers to identify them as lifeguards.
“But as the summer goes on, you gain comfort with it. I’d never seen a nude beach in my life,” said Sweeney, who stood watch Thursday afternoon, fully clothed and ready to spring into action should any sunbathers get in trouble. “My very first day at Hanlan’s I was a little uncomfortable.
Bare bums speckled with wet sand, dangling appendages and collections of exposed skin that mingle together like Neapolitan ice cream: this is the view from Declan Sweeney’s “office.” He’s a lifeguard at Hanlan’s Point, a stretch of beach on Toronto Island that includes the city’s only “clothing optional” public bathing area.Īs a 19-year-old Ryerson engineering student, it’s quite the summer job.