Pizza deliveryman on trial for posing as cop, raping teenage girl
Muhammad Firman Jumali Chew, accused of impersonating as a cop and raping a 16-year-old girl, at Supreme Court on May 25, 2016. Photo: Robin Choo/TODAY
SINGAPORE — Out of fear that she would be dumped, or that their sexual relationship would be exposed to her mother and school, a 16-year-old girl who was allegedly raped by a man, posing as a police officer, kept her ordeal bottled up.
This was revealed by her ex-boyfriend on Wednesday (May 25), who testified on the second day of the trial of Muhammad Firman Jumali Chew, 30. The pizza delivery man faces charges of rape, sexual assault by penetration and impersonating a public servant.
The witness, who was then also 16, recounted how he had four conversations with his then-girlfriend after she had allegedly been raped by Firman on Oct 9, 2013, but she did not dare to tell him what had happened.
It was only after they had parted ways that she told him of the alleged rape over the phone.
Similarly, a family friend of the girl who regularly commutes with her back to Johor Baru — where they live — said it was after some probing that the victim confided that she had been raped.
The young couple, who cannot be named because of a gag order, were having sex on the 11th floor staircase landing at Block 362 Woodlands Avenue that day when she spotted someone peeping at them from one floor up.
When the boy went up to check, he saw Firman hiding behind a wall but did not confront him.
The couple decided to leave but was stopped by Firman while they were waiting for the lift. Firman allegedly told them he was a police officer and asked for their identity cards.
He made a phone call and asked the boyfriend to leave so that he could talk to the victim.
The boy complied and waited for his girlfriend at the void deck where he was approached by a Chinese man — understood to be prosecution witness Tung Shue Kiong — who asked if he had seen a man with a “fair complexion” and looks like a Chinese.
The boyfriend then called the victim on her mobile phone. She took the call but told him she would call him back. After that, the boy tried calling his girlfriend several times but the calls went unanswered, he told the court.
After he left, the victim called him and cried over the phone, only saying that she was scared and asking for them to meet at Woodlands Bus Interchange. Together with the Chinese man, the boy headed to the interchange.
When they saw each other, the boyfriend pulled the victim aside and asked her what had happened. But she kept crying and repeating that she was afraid he would leave her, he said.
When her bus arrived, she ran off, ignoring the boyfriend’s request for her to wait and tell him what Firman had done to her.
The boyfriend said that when he was on his way home, he called the girl again and promised that he would not leave her. It was only then that she revealed what had happened.
When he asked her why she let Firman do that, she told him that she was scared that the man would tell her mother and school about their relationship.
The victim’s family friend also took the stand yesterday and testified that she tried unsuccessfully to contact the girl that day to ask if she wanted to commute home together.
But they saw each other at the bus interchange and they boarded the same bus. Noticing her distress, she asked the girl what had happened but to no avail.
She testified that she asked if the girl had stolen something or was caught smoking but the victim denied this. When she asked the girl if she had been molested, the girl’s answer was that it was “more than that”.
The victim’s mother was informed and they returned to Singapore to lodge a police report.
The trial continues on Thursday with Mr Tung expected to take the stand.
