Former gang leader who raped 13-year-old girl multiple times loses appeal

SINGAPORE — The Court of Appeal upheld former gang leader Koh Rong Guang’s conviction and sentence on Wednesday (May 8) for raping a 13-year-old girl multiple times, causing her to resort to acts of self-harm as a coping mechanism.

Koh, now 26, was sentenced to 28 years’ jail and 24 strokes of the cane last year for his offences, which were committed between November 2013 and January 2014.

Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon noted that the corroborating evidence of other witnesses who testified during Koh’s trial in the High Court, as well as other pieces of objective evidence, made it “very difficult” to overturn the conviction. It was “simply untenable” that all of them lied to conspire against Koh, he said.

The Chief Justice also turned down his request to start serving his sentence a week later, as he had been out on S$100,000 bail pending the appeal. Koh was given a few minutes to speak to his family members before he was taken away.

During his trial, Koh had insisted that he never touched the victim, who is now 17, and that she fabricated the allegations to get back at him for a collage of sexually explicit photos of her he had uploaded on Facebook. She cannot be named due to a court gag order to protect her identity.

Koh was convicted of three counts of statutory rape in March last year, along with eight other offences, including sexual assault by penetration, sexual exploitation of a child and criminal intimidation.

He was acquitted of a fourth rape charge as the victim’s version of facts could not be independently corroborated during the course of the trial.

In appealing against his client’s conviction, Koh’s lawyer Irving Choh told the panel of three judges — including Judge of Appeal Tay Yong Kwang and Justice Woo Bih Li — that there were inconsistencies in the victim’s testimony. This included her leaving out any mention of the rapes in her first police report and a discrepancy in when she reported one of the rapes took place.

However, Chief Justice Menon responded that the High Court judge had already explained why she was satisfied that the essence of what the victim said was correct.

“The judge was mindful of the potential weaknesses in parts of the victim’s evidence, but observed that it would be simply preposterous to find that every one of the prosecution witnesses had conspired to fabricate evidence, especially when the defence never even put this allegation to at least three of the prosecution witnesses,” said the Chief Justice in his oral judgment.

ABOUT THE CASE

Koh’s gang member, 20-year-old Fu Yiming, had befriended the victim sometime in October 2013 and introduced her to Koh.  

Koh then lured the 13-year-old victim out to meet him, isolated her at stairways and on two occasions, placed her under fear to ensure that she complied with his sexual demands.

The rapes took place at the staircase of a karaoke outlet at Choa Chu Kang Centre and the staircase of a block of flats in Choa Chu Kang Crescent, near the Yew Tee NTUC Foodfare coffee shop.

One time, he threatened her and Fu with a brick before raping her.

To ensure that the victim did not reveal his crimes, Koh took naked photos of her and told her to pose in a compromising manner with Fu.

On another occasion, he hit the wall near her face with a spanner and hurled vulgarities at her, then forced her to perform oral sex on him and raped her. He then made her remove her clothes while holding onto the spanner and took a naked photo of her.

Emboldened by her silence, Koh even offered the victim to three other gang members to have sex with. One of them, Alson Tan Yu Seng, raped her while the other two pinned her down. Tan, who was 15 at the time of offence, was sentenced in 2017 to reformative training, which can run from at least 18 months to three years. 

The victim only broke her silence months after the incidents, when the photos Koh took were made into a collage and circulated on Facebook.