Main culprit in wife-sharing rape cases wants to appeal, claims wife wants lighter sentence

SINGAPORE — The main culprit in a series of wife-sharing rape cases where women were drugged and raped will be mounting an appeal. 

He claimed his wife — the main victim in the case — wanted him to ask for a lighter sentence.

He also said he was appealing because he was "not able to be represented by a defence counsel at the point of pleading guilty".

The 42-year-old Singaporean man was sentenced to 29 years' jail and 24 strokes of the cane last month for conspiring with five men to have his wife drugged and raped over a period of eight years.

The man, identified only as J to protect the victims' identities, also conspired with two men to rape their wife or ex-wife.

According to a judgment published on Friday (June 16), the former safety officer is appealing against his sentence on two grounds.

First, his wife's "wish" that he could "seek the honourable courts' leniency for a lighter sentence", and second, that he was "not able to be represented by a defence counsel" when he pleaded guilty.

Justice See Kee Oon briefly addressed these two grounds.

"Even granting the accused the benefit of doubt that (his wife) had in fact expressed such a wish... no contemporaneous written mitigation plea from (her) was put forth on his behalf when he pleaded guilty before me," said the judge.

He noted that none of J's family members appeared to be present in the courtroom, as well. All that J had to show as a demonstration of his wife's purported support for him was a letter from March 2020, which was superseded by certain events.

On the second ground, Justice See said it was pertinent to note from case records that J was previously represented by two different sets of lawyers.

The first set had acted for him since 2020 and was discharged in May 2022, apparently because he disagreed with the lawyers' advice.

The second set of lawyers was discharged in October 2022, when J was originally scheduled to plead guilty along with several co-conspirators.

J had apparently changed his mind, and counsel discharged themselves because of his inconsistent instructions.

"In short, the accused already had the benefit of legal advice for well over two years from two different counsel," said Justice See.

"The fact that the accused was unrepresented when he pleaded guilty on May 4, 2023 is not relevant to whether his sentence was manifestly excessive. 

"He was afforded every opportunity to mitigate. He was given more than sufficient and ample time to prepare for his mitigation.

The record would also show that I had endeavoured to guide him as much as I could through the course of the proceedings. I do not think that he was prejudiced or impeded in any way on account of being unrepresented."

The judgment on Friday revealed new information about J's account that was previously unreported.

This includes the fact that J blamed "irresponsible and unethical people" for trying to "over-sensationalise (his) case as a pornographic story that stems from fantasy of threesome sex and wife sharing/swapping" and for painting a persona of him which was "totally not what (he was) in reality".

He claimed that he was "never interested" in the wives of his co-accused but had only been acting to reciprocate their friendship and help.

J sought to distance himself from his co-conspirators, explaining that he did not want to be sentenced together with them.

He added he did not want to be "seen and stereotyped as one who thinks and behaves the same as them, and have the same agenda".

J also claimed that his actions and state of mind were "triggered" because he was influenced by two of the co-accused — K and L.

The appeal will be heard at a later date. CNA