Renovation contractor convicted of raping customer, judge rejects consensual sex argument

SINGAPORE: A man was convicted by the High Court on Tuesday (Oct 28) of raping a woman while at her flat to fix the lights.

The judge rejected Koh Lee Hwa's argument that the sex had been consensual, finding instead that the victim's evidence was "unusually convincing" while the man's account was "completely inconsistent".

Koh, a 49-year-old Singapore permanent resident, was convicted of four charges, including rape, sexual assault by penetration and outrage of modesty.

THE CASE

The victim, whose age was redacted from court documents due to a gag order protecting her identity, first came to know Koh in 2015 when she hired him to renovate her flat.

In the years after this, she occasionally contacted him for renovation and electrical works, with about two years passing since their last chat before the rape incident occurred in 2021.

On Aug 21 that year, the woman contacted Koh via WhatsApp asking him to repair the faulty toilet light and kitchen light switch in her flat.

He went over the next day and quoted S$430 for the works, asking for a S$200 deposit before he returned the following day with the required replacement parts.

On Aug 23, 2021, Koh went to the victim's flat and repaired the toilet light and said he would be fixing another switch, which was in the hall.

While talking about the repairs in the hall, Koh pulled the victim towards him and hugged her without consent, the prosecution said in their case.

Shocked, the woman pushed him away and went to her bedroom, where she texted two friends about what happened, saying she was scared.

Koh then asked the victim to check the bedroom for the switches there and she did so. However, as she exited the bedroom toilet, Koh pushed her onto the bed and raped her.

The victim bit Koh to make him stop, but he later claimed at trial that this was a "love bite".

The victim later told her friends what happened and they went over to see her before taking her to the hospital for a medical examination. A police report was later lodged.

At trial, Koh claimed that the rape accusation was a false one and that the sex had been consensual.

In her verdict on Tuesday, Justice Mavis Chionh found the victim's evidence "unusually convincing".

She was able to give a clear and vivid account of the events, including her attempts to struggle and resist Koh's sexual advances.

It was undisputed that the only relationship between the pair prior to the rape was that of service provider and customer, and even then, their interactions were sporadic.

The victim had also sent messages to her friends like "he rape me", which constitutes corroboration of her account of being raped. The Court of Appeal had held in another case that subsequent complaints made by a complainant may be treated as corroboration of her evidence, provided that the statement implicating the accused was made at the first reasonable opportunity after the offence was committed.

Evidence from the victim's three friends also had "corroborative value", said Justice Chionh. They testified about the state they had found the victim in when they went to her flat.

She was in a state of shock and distress, described by the trio as in a "daze", speaking "incoherently", staring blankly with "vacant eyes", being "a bit dissociated" and in a "robotic" state.

Justice Chionh noted that third parties' observations of distress on the part of a complainant constitute corroboration of a complainant's testimony.

She rejected Koh's argument that the victim's account contained inconsistencies.

She also did not place any weight on the evidence of the bite mark on Koh. 

"The evidence of the bite mark by itself does not point one way or another, so I think the fairest thing to do is view it as not being particularly helpful to either the prosecution's or the defence's case," said Justice Chionh.

She said that even Koh himself did not claim to have received any indications of sexual interest from the victim before the incident.

"Indeed, according to the accused's version of events, the entire sexual encounter that day happened out of the blue, preceded only by the complainant's act of pulling on his arm and repeating to him the question he himself asked her ("what do you want?")," said the judge.

She said it was highly improbable, in the history and context of Koh's interactions with the victim, that she would have consented to "an impromptu episode of unprotected sex with a man she had hitherto known only as her renovations contractor".

She said Koh's evidence about what happened after the incident was "completely inconsistent" with the evidence given by the victim's three friends.

Koh had said that the woman had tidied up and "looked normal" after the sexual encounter.

However, one of her friends testified that the victim's hair was "pretty messy", unlike the "very straight, neat and flat" style she normally maintained.

Justice Chionh said Koh's other arguments were "similarly devoid of merit".

"His argument that the incident could not have been one of rape because it had occurred within the span of 10 minutes makes no sense", said the judge of one of these meritless arguments.

Koh will be sentenced at a later date.

The penalties for rape and sexual assault by penetration are a maximum of 20 years' jail each, along with a fine or caning.

For molestation, Koh could be jailed for up to three years, fined, caned, or given any combination of these punishments.