SINGAPORE — What was meant to be a casual gathering of colleagues on a weekend took a turn for the worse when a male colleague carried a drunk co-worker into a hotel bathroom so that another co-worker could rape her.
On Monday (March 20), a 19-year-old pleaded guilty to abetment by intentionally aiding a 20-year-old man to commit rape against the 23-year-old woman.
Due to a court imposed gag order to protect the identity of the victim, none of the three individuals, who are Singaporeans, can be named. Instead, the teenager and his co-accused were labelled as A1 and A2 respectively in court documents.
District Judge Carol Ling called for a reformative training report to be prepared for A1 and he is next scheduled to return to court on April 17.
Reformative training is a regimented rehabilitation programme for those under 21 who commit relatively serious crimes.
WHAT HAPPENED
Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Lee Zu Zhao told the court that the rape took place in the early hours of Nov 29 in 2021.
At that time, A1, A2 and the victim were both working as warehouse assistants.
The prosecutor said A2 found the victim attractive and wanted to pursue a relationship despite her being married.
Sometime that month, all three were added to a WhatsApp chat group named “Sunday Outing”, which included seven other colleagues, where they decided to meet on Nov 28.
That afternoon, A1 and A2 made a reservation for a room at Hotel Royal along Newton Road, so that they could use it to drink and sleep over.
They then met the other colleagues at Lau Pa Sat hawker centre for dinner before eight of them went to the hotel room at around 11pm.
There, the group drank alcohol till around midnight before the hotel’s concierge informed them that they were in breach of Covid-19 regulations, and that three members of the group would have to leave or the police would be called in.
At the time, Covid-19 regulations only allowed for a maximum of five people to be together.
Despite the warning, there were still six people left in the room at 2am, including the A1, A2 and the victim.
The victim, who was drunk, laid down on the bed to sleep beside A2.
At some point, A1 saw A2 hugging the victim, and the teenager offered to carry the woman to the toilet where he knew the older man intended to commit rape.
After A1 had carried the victim in, A2 went in, closed the door and proceeded to rape the woman.
DPP Lee said that when A1 heard the woman “coughing and gagging”, he knocked on the toilet door and asked A2 to “share” the victim with him, to which A2 said no.
A2 then dressed the victim before he carried her back to bed.
Before the victim woke up at 7am, A2 told A1 and a third individual, a 20-year-old woman (B1), that he had sex with the victim and the trio agreed to tell the victim that she had “woken up and followed A2 into the toilet herself”.
When the victim got up to use the toilet, she suspected she had been raped. When she questioned B1, the younger woman simply said that she did not know what happened as she was asleep.
Later that day, A2 sent a text message to the victim to apologise for having taken advantage of her.
He then said that she had gotten out of bed and followed him into the toilet, to which the victim replied that his story “did not seem to tally”. DPP Lee did not elaborate on what this meant in court.
In any case, the prosecutor said several other colleagues had messaged the victim to ask if she was okay, as she had been “unusually quiet that morning”. She did not reply to any of them.
DPP Lee said the victim felt embarrassed about what might have happened and consequently did not return to work on Nov 31.
On Dec 1, she resigned from her company and refused A2’s attempt to talk to her.
She then lodged a police report on Dec 3, after her husband convinced her to do so. DPP Lee said the victim’s husband only discovered what had transpired after she rejected his attempts to initiate intimacy.
It is unclear if B1 will face any form of punishment. TODAY has sought clarification from the Attorney-General's Chambers.
Anyone found guilty of rape can be jailed up to 20 years, and are also liable to a fine or caning, while those found guilty of abetting an offence can be given the punishment provided for the offence.
https://www.todayonline.com/singapo...ker-hotel-toilet-so-he-could-rape-her-2133171
