SINGAPORE: A 47-year-old man broke into a woman’s home and raped her after meeting her for the first time at a karaoke lounge.
After raping her, Yap Pow Foo offered the woman up to S$50,000 and said he would marry her. Yap contested the charges at trial but the High Court found him guilty of both of them.
In a judgment dated Monday (Jan 16), Justice Tan Siong Thye laid out the reasons for his decision.
On Jan 29, 2017, the 39-year-old victim was at a KTV lounge in Bugis with some friends to celebrate Chinese New Year.
Yap joined them towards the end of the night and drove the victim and other members of the group home at around 12.45am on Jan 30, 2017.
The victim was heavily intoxicated and was the first to be dropped off, but after ferrying the rest of the people home, Yap returned to her apartment.
He used a satay stick that he found near some rubbish bins and retrieved a key that had been slipped under the door.
He then raped the victim in her bedroom. The victim called the police about 15 minutes after Yap left.
When they did not arrive immediately, she made another six calls. Justice Tan said the repeated calls were very significant as they showed the victim was in distress.
THE DEFENCE’S CASE
Defence lawyers S S Dhillon and Suppiah Krishnamurthi argued that the victim was sober and that the sex was consensual. They claimed that the victim had let Yap into the unit.
To explain some discrepancies in his testimony, Yap claimed that he had a “phobia” of the police and police stations that held him back from telling the truth.
Justice Tan found that this phobia is “a falsehood, untenable and unsupported by the evidence before the court”.
“This alleged phobia is nothing but a mere excuse to distance himself from the incriminating evidence that he had voluntarily given to the police,” he said.
The judge found that the prosecution had established the elements of both the rape charge and the housebreaking charge.
The evidence in the form of closed-circuit television footage, call logs and medical evidence supported the finding that the victim was heavily intoxicated, said Justice Tan.
She was in a state of deep sleep at the time of the rape and was unconscious, so she could not have consented to sex with Yap, said the judge.
He also found the victim’s evidence consistent and found her to be an honest and forthcoming witness.
“It is true that the victim has a chequered past, having previously committed perjury in respect of the sham marriage proceedings,” said Justice Tan.
This refers to a previous case where the victim was a witness for the prosecution in a case involving a sham marriage.
“However, in this case, the victim’s credibility is not affected,” said the judge.
He added that the victim had voluntarily come clean with the police regarding her past case of perjury in the sham marriage proceedings and said this was a credit to her reliability and willingness to tell the truth.
Yap’s evidence, on the other hand, was inconsistent and contradictory. He sought to explain the inconsistencies in his police statements with the excuse of the alleged phobia of police and police stations, but Justice Tan said this excuse “is incredulous and unbelievable”.
“Indeed, this belated excuse was only raised during his testimony in court, and it defies logic and common sense,” he said.
Yap will be sentenced at a later date.