Stranger invited by man to have sex with his blindfolded girlfriend tells court he thought victim consented
A hotel room at Hotel 81 Bugis. One of the threesomes to which Srihari Mahendran, 23, was invited by a former auxiliary police officer took place in one of the hotel's rooms.
SINGAPORE — A man, who is on trial for allegedly raping and sexually assaulting the girlfriend of a former auxiliary police officer who invited him to join them in a threesome, said he was under the impression that the victim had consented to the act.
Srihari Mahendran, who was taking the stand for the first time on the fourth day of his trial on Friday (Nov 8), said: “When he (the former officer) invited me to sleep with his girlfriend, I imagine that he would have talked to his girlfriend about it first. Consent is important to me.”
The 23-year-old has claimed trial to a total of 10 charges — four for rape, one for sexual assault by penetration, four for outrage of modesty and one for making an obscene film.
The 28-year-old former officer who invited Srihari to have sex together with him and his girlfriend on two occasions was jailed last year, after he pleaded guilty to two counts of abetting Srihari to rape the victim, and another count of abetment of sexual assault by penetration.
The man — who cannot be named to protect the identity of the victim — was sentenced by the High Court to 19 years and 11 months' jail, with 24 strokes of the cane.
The blindfolded girlfriend was unaware of what happened the first time, the court heard previously. But on the second occasion, the girlfriend realised that there were more than one pair of hands on her body, so she tore off her blindfold and saw to her shock that there was a stranger in the room. Srihari then fled the scene.
On Tuesday, the court heard evidence from the former officer who said that he wanted to act out his sexual fantasy of watching someone else have sex with his then-girlfriend. The woman did not know of or agreed to the plan.
The man claimed during the first day of the trial that Srihari was well aware the victim did not know that the younger man had been invited to have sex with her.
He added that Srihari had even helped to plan aspects of how to carry out the threesome to the point where the older man felt that he and Srihari were “partners”.
Part of the plan involved having the victim bound and blindfolded, so that she would be under the impression that she was having sex only with her then-boyfriend.
When examined by his defence lawyer, Mr Trent Ng, Srihari explained why he was so certain that the victim had given her consent, even though he never spoke to her.
Srihari rationalised that a threesome, or three people having sex together, was something normal that the then-couple did, because there were a number of videos uploaded onto the 28-year-old man’s Tumblr website showing a woman having sex with other unidentified men. And he thought the woman was the girlfriend.
'I AM A LOT FATTER'
Referring to the first occasion on April 29, 2016 when he had sex with the victim at Hotel 81 Bugis, he said that he thought it would be obvious that she was having sex with someone else.
Srihari said that he is “a lot fatter” than the older man.
“It became very obvious to me at that point that she knew, and that they, as a couple, wanted this (threesome) and they talked about it and then carried it out.”
He said this notion that the victim had given her consent was cemented when he was invited by the older man to have sex with the girlfriend again on Aug 6, 2016 at another hotel.
However, he realised something was amiss only when the victim, who was bound and blindfolded, motioned that she wanted to get up — barely minutes after he had started having sex with her.
The older man then “gestured angrily” for Srihari to leave the room.
“Some doubt about whether she consented started festering in my head,” Srihari said.
“As I was leaving through the door, I was wondering: Why did he make me leave so suddenly? I followed his instructions. What did I do wrong?”
He added that he recalled hearing the victim ask: “Who is that?”
It was then, he said, that he realised that perhaps consent had not been given.
“I felt used,” he said. “This wasn’t a sexual fantasy that he wanted to share with me, but this was something he wanted for himself.”
The trial will resume on Tuesday. Srihari remains out on S$50,000 bail.
